The  Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom 


DR.  HO  KING  ENG. 


By 

R.    L.    McNABB,   A.  M. 

Formerly  Missionary  in  China 


CINCINNATI:     JENNINGS    AND    PYE 
NEW    YORK:     EATON    AND    MAINS 


COPYIIICHT,  1903,  BY 
JENNINGS    AND     PY« 


TO  THE 

WOMAN'S  FOREIGN  MISSIONARY  SOCIETY 
WORKERS  OF  ALL  ORTHODOX  CHURCHES, 
WHO  ARE  LABORING  FOR  THE  UPLIFTING 
AND  CHRISTIANIZATION  OF  THE  WOMEN 
OF  CHINA,  THIS  VOLUME  IS  DEDICATED 


PREFACE. 


IN  this  little  volume  an  attempt  is  made  to  de- 
scribe the  condition  of  the  women  of  China;  many 
of  their  peculiar  customs,  both  social  and  religious, 
are  explained  ;  and  the  earnest  and  successful  efforts 
of  lady  missionaries  in  China  are  described.  The 
ripe  fruit  of  missionary  work  is  illustrated  by  giving 
a  biographical  sketch  of  a  "Christian  Chinese  Lady," 
Mrs.  Sia  Ahok.  That  the  reader  may  appreciate 
the  possibilities  of  pagan  womanhood  at  its  best,  a 
description  is  given  of  that  remarkable  woman,  the 
Dowager  Empress  of  China. 

In  preparing  this  work  the  author  has  not  only 
drawn  from  his  own  observations  and  investigations 
in  China,  but  has  searched  through  many  books  on 
things  Chinese  written  by  various  authors,  in  order 
to  find  facts  that  would  illustrate  the  subjects  under 
discussion.  Credit  is  given  to  these  authors  in  the 

7 


8  Preface. 

body  of  this  book.  Names  of  individual  mission- 
aries are  not  given,  for  time  and  space  would  fail 
me  if  I  undertook  to  describe  the  work  of  each 
missionary  heroine.  For  the  sake  of  clearness,  and 
in  order  to  make  each  chapter  as  independent  as 
possible  of  every  other  chapter,  a  few  facts  have 
been  used  more  than  once  in  the  preparation  of  this 
volume.  R.  L,.  McNABB. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.   THE  TRIALS  OF  THEIR  CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH,       -  13 

II.   THEIR  DRESS,  WORK,  AND  AMUSEMENTS,     -        -  25 

III.  THEIR  STATUS  IN  THE  HOME  AND  SOCIETY,      -        -  37 

IV.  How  THEY  ARE  BETROTHED  AND  MARRIED,  51 

V.    THE   HOUSES   IN   WHICH    THEY    LIVE,   AND   THE 

CUSTOMS  AND  RITES  ATTENDING  THEIR  BURIAL,  64 

VI.   THEIR  RELIGIOUS  CONDITION,       -        ...  go 

VII.   WHAT  is  BEING  DONE  FOR  THEIR  CHRISTIANIZATION  ?  94 

VIII.   WHAT  is  BEING  DONE  FOR  THEIR  CHRISTIANIZATION  ? 

— CONTINUED,   ...                                -  107 

IX.   MRS.  Si  A  AHOK,  A  CHINESE  CHRISTIAN  LADY,     -  124 

X.   THE  CHINESE  EMPRESS  DOWAGER,   -  144 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


DR.  HO  KING  ENG, Frontispiece 

FACING  PAGE 

THE  BABY  TOWER,  14 

SMALL  SHOES  WORN  BY  BOUND-FOOTED  WOMEN,       -        -  22 

How  HINGHUA  WOMEN  DRESS  THEIR  HAIR,         -  28 

NATIVE  WOMEN  GRINDING  AT  THE  MILL,         -        -        -  34 

CHINESE  MARRIAGE  SCENE  (Chinese  water-color  painting),  52 

CHINESE  MARRIAGE  SCENE  (just  before  unveiling  the  bride),  62 

KUSHAN  MONASTERY  AND  MOUNTAIN  NEAR  FOOCHOW,  68 

A  DECEASED  WIFE  OF  THE  EMPEROR  OF  CHINA,  78 

IMAGE  OF  BUDDHA  AND  A  PRIEST  AT  His  DEVOTIONS,     -  86 
GROUP  OF  CHINESE  GODDESSES,  INCLUDING  THE  GODDESS 

OF  MERCY  AND  QUEEN  OF  HEAVEN,        ...  92 
BOARDING-SCHOOL  GIRLS,  CHUNG  KING,    ....     98 
THE  ANGEL  MONUMENT  SENT  OUT  FROM   ENGLAND  TO 
MARK  THE  RESTING-PLACE  OF  THE   ENGLISH   MAR- 
TYRS WHO  WERE  KILLED  AT  HUA  SANG,  NEAR  FOO- 

CHOW,  BY  THE  VEGETARIAN  REBELS,  AUGUST  I,  1895,  IO2 

MARY  CROOK  MEMORIAL  ORPHANAGE,  FOOCHOW,         -  108 

ELIZABETH  SKELTON  DANFORTH  HOSPITAL,  KIUKIANG,  122 

MRS.  AHOK  AND  MAID,     - 126 

THE  EMPRESS  DOWAGER,        -        -  144 
RECEPTION    OF   FOREIGN    MINISTERS   BY    THE    IMPERIAL 

COURT. -  158 


The  Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  TRIALS  OF  THEIR  CHILDHOOD 
AND  YOUTH. 

THE  Chinese,  unless  talking  with  foreigners, 
never  call  their  country  China.  Multiplied  millions 
of  the  interior  population  of  that  vast  country  have 
never  heard  the  term.  About  250  B.  C.  the  great 
Tsin  (Chin)  Dynasty  ruled  that  country.  The  peo- 
ple of  India  spoke  of  China  as  "The  land  of  the 
Tsin  Dynasty."  When  the  Romanists  entered  India 
they  Latinized  the  word  Tsin,  making  it  Tsina  or 
China.  Thus  the  "Western  world"  came  to  know 
the  land  of  Confucius  by  the  name  China. 

Cathay,  which  was  derived  from  Ki-tah,  the 
name  of  an  emperor  who  ruled  in  the  tenth  cen- 
tury, is  another  name  that  foreigners  apply  to  China. 
It  may  be  called  the  poetic  name,  for  Western  poets, 

13 


14          Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

when  they  sing  of  that  land,  call  it  "Far  Cathay." 
But  the  Chinese  never  use  the  name. 

The  "Celestial  Empire"  is  a  name  that  is  some- 
times used  by  Chinese  as  well  as  by  foreigners,  and 
is  derived  from  "Teen  Chow,"  meaning  "Celestial 
Dynasty."  As  applied  to  that  country  it  means  the 
"kingdom  which  the  dynasty  appointed  by  heaven 
rules."  Southern  China  is  emphatically  "the  Land 
of  Flowers."  Every  kind  of  flowering  plant  or  tree 
that  I  have  ever  seen,  from  the  tiny  pansy  to  the 
majestic  "Beauty  of  India"  (a  tree  as  large  as  our 
forest  trees,  that  has  a  beautiful  bright  pink  flower), 
grows  in  that  semi-tropical  region.  Hence  that 
country  is  frequently  called  the  "Land  of  Flowers." 

China's  sacred  or  classical  name  is  "Chung- 
Kwok,"  "Middle  Kingdom."  A  Chinese  map  of 
the  world  would  represent  China  as  the  center  of 
all  things  earthly,  with  the  United  States,  England, 
and  other  lands  as  small  islands  clustering  around 
the  coasts  of  that  "Middle  Land." 

Dr.  S.  Wells  Williams,  who  has  doubtless  writ- 
ten the  greatest  work  on  China,  gave  that  work  the 
title,  "The  Middle  Kingdom." 

Out  of  this  list  of  names  "The  Middle  King- 
dom" is  doubtless  the  most  appropriate  one  for  a 
book  that  describes  that  strange  land.  Hence  "The 


tc 


Trials  of  Childhood  and  Youth.  15 

Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom"  is  the  best  name 
for  a  book  that  gives  an  account  of  the  women  of 
that  country. 

When  the  girl  baby  first  opens  her  quaint 
little  eyes  in  a  Chinese  home — be  it  a  hut  or  pal- 
ace— she  is  greeted  with  a  frown.  No  one  in  the 
household  is  made  happy  by  her  advent.  She  is, 
like  her  Redeemer,  despised  and  rejected  of  men. 
Her  swaddling  clothes  may  become  her  burial 
clothes,  for  infanticide  is  a  common  practice  in 
China.  Her  father  may  cast  her  into  some  baby 
tower,  where  birds  may  come  and  feast  upon  her 
flesh.  She  may  find  a  watery  grave  in  a  neighbor- 
ing river  whose  pitiless  waves  hush  forever  her 
child-cry.  She  may  be  buried  alive  in  the  mud 
floor  of  the  dark  and  dingy  room  where  she  was 
born.  As  sad  as  the  custom  of  infanticide  is  in 
China,  it  is  no  worse  than  it  was  in  India  or  other 
heathen  countries  with  the  possible  exception  of 
Japan.  If  a  Western  person  reproves  a  Chinaman 
for  this  crime,  he  may  retort  by  saying,  "It  is  no 
worse  to  kill  the  child  after  it  is  born  than  before, 
and  there  is  no  risk  to  the  mother's  life." 

To  what  extent  infanticide  prevails  is  hard  to 
determine.  The  statement  that  is  going  the  rounds 
of  the  newspapers  that  seventy-five  per  cent  of  the 


1 6          Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

children  of  China  are  killed  at  birth  is  false.  Boys 
are  seldom  if  ever  put  to  death.  After  there  are 
two  or  more  girls  born  to  one  father  and  mother 
the  girl  babies  that  come  to  life  in  that  family 
may  soon  be  put  to  death. 

Orphanages  and  foundling  homes  have  been 
established  by  the  missionaries  into  which  many 
waifs  have  been  gathered.  A  native  Christian  doc- 
tor was  present  when  an  infant  girl  was  born  to 
heathen  parents,  who  were  anxious  for  the  advent 
of  a  son.  The  angry  grandfather  seized  the  child 
and  threw  it  into  the  back  yard.  The  Christian  doc- 
tor rescued  the  child,  and  took  it  to  the  orphanage. 
The  cruel  parents  refused  to  grant  the  doctor  any- 
thing in  which  to  wrap  the  little  outcast.  Many 
of  these  little  ones  have  been  rescued.  Raised  under 
the  fostering  care  of  Christian  matrons,  and  edu- 
cated in  the  mission  schools,  they  become  the  wives 
of  native  Christian  ministers  and  laymen,  teachers 
in  day-schools,  or  Bible-readers  in  the  secluded  fe- 
male departments  of  Chinese  homes.  If  the  little 
creature  is  allowed  to  stay  in  the  home  of  her  parents 
she  is  treated  as  an  intruder,  and  is  not  considered 
as  a  member  of  the  family.  She  is  considered  as 
a  member  of  her  future  husband's  family.  If  asked 
the  number  of  his  children,  her  father  will  give 


Trials  of  Childhood  and  Youth.  17 

the  exact  number  of  his  boys,  but  will  not  mention 
his  daughters.  If  he  happens  to  have  no  sons,  he 
will  say  in  the  most  pathetic  tone  of  voice,  so  as 
to  stir  the  sympathy  of  the  inquirer,  "I  have  one 
insignificant  girl."  She  is  not  only  an  unmention- 
able article,  but  she  may  be  an  unnamed  article  in 
the  household.  She  may  be  just  numbered.  An 
old  woman  who  used  to  come  to  carry  away  the 
kitchen  refuse  with  which  to  feed  her  pigs  was 
called  "thirteen."  That  was  the  only  name  she  had. 
She  was  the  thirteenth  girl  that  was  allowed  to  live 
among  her  grandfather's  descendants. 

If  the  girl  is  allowed  to  live,  an  uncertain  fate 
awaits  her.  She  may  be  sold  to  be  a  bondmaid 
of  some  small-footed  occupant  of  the  inner  apart- 
ments of  a  wealthy  mandarin.  When  she  reaches 
a  marriageable  age,  the  mandarin  in  whose  family 
she  has  been  a  slave  is  obliged  to  sell  her  to  become 
a  wife  of  some  lowly  laborer,  thus  changing  the 
form  of  her  bondage,  but  still  leaving  her,  in  a 
sense,  a  slave.  She  may  be  kidnaped  by  bad  men 
and  sold  into  a  life  of  shame.  Wicked  men  of  the 
Occident  pay  these  kidnapers  handsome  prices  for 
Chinese  girls.  Many  of  them  are  kept  in  the  for- 
eign communities  of  China.  Others  of  these  help- 
less creatures  are  sent  to  Australia,  Singapore,  and 


1 8          Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

America,  to  become  the  slaves  of  licentious  wretches. 
This  crime  prevails  to  such  an  alarming  extent 
among  the  foreigners  in  China  that  the  North  China 
Herald  (which  is  not  by  any  means  a  missionary 
journal)  says: 

"Almost  daily  girls  are  enticed  to  Shanghai  and 
sold  like  so  many  sheep  and  cattle.  The  girls  are 
taught  to  play  the  native  guitar,  to  sing,  and  lead 
a  shameful  life.  Rods,  whips,  and  burning  hot 
opium-needles  are  used  to  torture  these  creatures 
in  order  to  make  them  show  off  their  accomplish- 
ments. Were  a  record  of  the  brutal  treatment  of 
these  girls  made  known,  the  world  would  be 
shocked.  \  This  would  not  be  allowed  in  the  Chinese 
city,  but  in  the  foreign  part  of  the  city  it  prevails 
to  an  alarming  extent.'^ 

The  Chinese  Recorder  and  Missionary  Journal 
says:  "It  is  true  that  there  are  sinks  of  iniquity 
in  Shanghai;  places  where  the  worst  of  vices  are 
openly  flaunted,  such  as  would  not  be  tolerated  in 
the  adjoining  heathen  city."  I  Remember  it  is 
the  foreign  part  of  Shanghai  that  is  referred  to 
and  not  the  native  city,  and  also  remember  that  both 
the  newspapers  quoted  are  foreign  papers  and  not 
Chinese.^ 

This  state  of  affairs  is  not  confined  to  Shanghai, 


Trials  of  Childhood  and  Youth.  19 

for  nearly  every  foreign  community  is  in  the  same 
condition  in  a  less  or  greater  degree.  Many  a 
Chinese  girl  is  sold  by  her  parents  with  the  dis- 
tinct understanding  that  she  is  to  go  to  America 
to  become  the  wife  of  a  rich  Chinese  merchant; 
but  when  she  reaches  her  destination  she  finds  she 
is  in  the  clutches  of  a  human  monster,  and  is  com- 
pelled to  eke  out  an  existence  that  is  worse  than 
death.  The  price  of  girls  varies  according  to  their 
age  and  use  to  which  they  are  put.  The  price  of 
a  bondmaid  is  about  two  dollars  for  each  year  of 
her  age.  A  girl  twelve  years  old  was  sold  at  Foo- 
chow  for  forty  thousand  cash  (about  thirty-six  dol- 
lars in  silver).  If  a  girl  is  to  lead  a  life  of  degra- 
dation she  will  bring  a  price  two  or  three  times  as 
high  as  a  bondslave.  Chinese  parents  are  gener- 
ally unwilling  on  any  consideration  to  sell  their 
daughters  for  such  a  career.  When  the  girl  is 
bought  with  the  understanding  that  she  is  to  be 
a  bondmaid,  and  is  then  put  into  a  life  of  shame, 
the  perpetrators  of  the  crime  are  liable  to  be  severely 
punished  by  the  magistrate. 

If  a  Chinese  girl  escapes  these  dangers  and 
remains  in  her  father's  home,  and  finally  becomes 
the  wife  of  some  Chinese  youth,  yet  is  her  life  not 
to  be  desired  by  an  Occidental  lady.  Confucius, 


20          Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

the  great  sage,  teaches  that  she  must  be  subject 
to  the  three  obediences.  While  in  her  father's 
house  she  must  obey  him;  when  married  she  must 
obey  her  husband;  and  when  her  husband  is  dead 
she  must  obey  her  own  son.  Filial  piety  is  so  deeply 
impressed  upon  her  mind  that  no  self-torture  is 
considered  too  great  for  her  to  bear  that  she  may 
relieve  her  parents.  If  a  Chinese  doctor  should 
intimate  that  a  broth  made  from  human  flesh  would 
restore  her  sick  parent  to  health,  she  would  not 
hesitate  to  sacrifice  some  of  her  own  flesh  for  that 
purpose.  A  girl  once  tried  to  cut  some  of  the  flesh 
from  the  fleshy  portion  of  her  body  with  which  to 
make  a  broth  for  her  sick  mother,  but  her  courage 
failed  her  and  she  then  cut  and  unjointed  a  portion 
of  one  of  her  fingers  and  made  the  broth.  This 
act  of  filial  piety  was  brought  to  the  attention  of 
the  emperor,  and  he  ordered  that  a  stone  arch  or 
gateway  should  be  erected  to  commemorate  the 
deed. 

Not  one  girl  in  a  thousand  is  educated.  Of 
what  use  is  it  to  educate  a  creature  whose  chief 
end  is  to  bear  children,  and  who  is  supposed  to 
spend  her  life  in  the  inner  apartments?  Surely 
she  is  not  worth  educating.  So  reasons  her  more 
favored  brother,  father,  or  husband.  Thus  her 


Trials  of  Childhood  and  Youth.  21 

mind  remains  as  cramped  and  undeveloped  as  do 
her  bound  feet. 

The  foot-binding  custom  is  one  of  the  singular 
and  sad  features  of  Chinese  life.  The  boys  do 
not  have  their  feet  bound.  In  South  China  the 
custom  is  mostly  confined  to  the  middle  and  upper 
classes.  Even  the  poor  are  anxious  to  have  one 
girl  with  bound  feet,  to  keep  up  the  standing  of  the 
family.  As  a  rule,  the  farmers  and  the  other  laboring 
classes  do  not  bind  the  feet  of  their  daughters; 
for  the  female  is  expected  to  perform  manual  labor, 
and  if  her  feet  are  bound  her  usefulness  will  be 
interfered  with.  In  North  China  the  women  of  all 
classes  bind  their. feet;  but  the  feet  of  the  laboring 
women  are  not  bound  so  small  as  to  interfere  much 
with  their  work.  Manchu-Tartar  ladies,  Hakka 
(a  nomadic  class  of  people)  women,  secondary 
wives,  bondmaids,  and  courtesans,  as  a  rule,  have 
large  feet.  Thus  the  bound  feet  of  a  Chinese  lady 
indicate  her  standing  in  society.  They  indicate  that 
she  is  not  a  Tartar,  a  nomadic  Hakka,  a  secondary 
wife,  or  a  bondslave.  Her  brothers  and  husband 
manifest  great  pride  in  her  tiny  feet,  and  call  them 
"golden  lilies."  If  a  rude  Chinaman  were  asked 
why  the  feet  of  the  women  were  bound,  he  would 
say,  "To  keep  them  from  gadding  about."  A 


22          Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

Chinese  gentleman  would  doubtless  answer  such  a 
question  as  follows:  "Many  centuries  ago  when 
there  was  a  native  dynasty  upon  the  throne,  an 
empress  was  born  with  naturally  deformed  or  club 
feet.  She  was  ashamed  of  her  feet,  and  persuaded 
the  emperor  to  require  all  the  ladies  admitted  to 
the  palace  to  have  their  feet  bound  to  look  like  her 
feet."  The  process  of  foot-binding  commences 
when  the  child  is  about  five  years  old,  and  continues 
to  the  day  of  her  death,  unless  she  should  happily 
become  a  Christian  or  come  in  touch,  directly  or 
indirectly,  with  the  teachings  of  Christianity. 

A  long  cotton  bandage  two  or  three  inches  wide 
is  thrown  over  the  four  small  toes,  and  they  are 
drawn  under  and  pressed  up  into  the  fleshy  part  of 
the  foot.  Being  held  in  that  position,  they  become 
stunted  and  cease  to  grow.  The  heel  is  drawn  down 
and  the  center  of  the  foot  is  pressed  up  until  the 
instep  bulges  out  in  front  of  the  ankle  bone.  The 
great  toe  is  left  out,  and  forms  the  acute  angle  of 
a  triangle.  The  bandage  is  bound  tightly  about 
the  foot  in  different  directions.  The  sole  of  the 
shoe  is  made  on  the  principle  of  an  inclined  plane 
of  forty-five  degrees.  The  heel  rests  on  the  back 
and  the  upper  part  of  the  incline,  and  the  great 
toe  goes  into  the  shoe  while  the  instep  bulges  out 


SMALL  SHOES  WORN  BY  BOUND-FOOTED  WOMEN. 


Trials  of  Childhood  and  Youth.  23 

above  the  shoe.  The  large  toe  being  all  that  goes 
into  the  shoe,  the  girl  practically  walks  on  her 
great  toe.  The  process  is  painful,  and  sometimes 
the  foot  is  injured  to  such  an  extent  that  it  has 
to  be  taken  off.  When  foreign  ladies  first  com- 
menced to  go  to  China  they  laced  themselves 
tightly  and  wore  large  hoop-skirts.  When  they 
talked  to  the  Chinese  women  about  the  foot-binding 
custom,  the  Oriental  lady  would  answer  by  saying 
that  it  was  not  as  bad  to  bind  the  feet  as  the  waist, 
for  the  Western  woman  in  binding  her  waist  in- 
jured her  heart,  lungs,  and  other  internal  organs. 
And  as  to  the  hoop-skirt,  the  Chinese  lady  said  she 
could  not  understand  why  the  foreign  lady  wore 
a  chicken-coop  under  her  gown. 

This  sad  custom  "is  the  mark  of  a  Chinese  lady, 
and  indispensable  to  a  suitable  betrothal.  Betrothal 
takes  place  very  early  in  life,  and  a  little  girl  whose 
feet  are  permitted  to  attain  the  usual  (natural) 
size  would  not  be  chosen  for  the  first  or  principal 
wife." 

Bound  feet  are  not  a  mark  of  wealth,  but  of 
gentility.  This  custom  is  one  of  the  greatest  obsta- 
cles to  the  spread  of  the  gospel  among  the  women 
of  China.  It  is  difficult  for  these  crippled  creatures 
to  go  about.  Thus  many  of  them  are  kept  from 


24          Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

Church  services.  Then,  when  the  girls  and  women 
become  Christians,  they  are  obliged  to  unbind  their 
feet,  and  in  this  way  break  caste  and  injure  their 
standing  in  society.  This  becomes  a  stumbling- 
block  to  many  a  woman  of  China,  and  she  draws 
back  and  prefers  to  continue  to  be  a  hobbling  and 
tinseled  lady  of  leisure,  to  being  a  humble  follower 
of  the  Christ. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THEIR  DRESS,  WORK,  AND  AMUSE- 
MENTS. 

WHEN  it  is  finally  decided  that  the  Chinese 
girl-baby's  life  will  be  spared,  she  is  wrapped  in 
swaddling  clothes,  like  her  little  Jewish  sister,  and 
tenderly  laid  beside  her  mother.  When  a  month 
old  her  head  is  shaved,  and  she  is  clothed  in  a  dress 
of  bright  red  color.  When  she  is  four  months  old 
she  is  allowed  to  sit  alone.  A  chair,  prettily 
painted,  gilded,  and  furnished  with  rollers,  is  pre- 
pared. The  child,  properly  dressed,  is  seated  in  the 
chair,  the  seat  of  which  has  been  well  smeared  with 
molasses  candy,  a  gift  from  her  maternal  grand- 
mother. The  candy  is  intended  to  stick  the  child 
to  the  chair  that  she  can  the  more  easily  learn  to  sit 
upright.  On  her  first  birthday  a  thank-offering, 
furnished  by  the  maternal  grandmother,  is  offered 
before  the  goddess  of  children  called  "Mother," 
who  is  supposed  to  have  special  care  of  children 
until  they  are  sixteen  years  old.  The  girl  also 

25 


26          Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

receives  some  fine  clothing,  bracelets,  and  head  or- 
naments from  the  maternal  grandmother.  After 
the  first  shaving  of  the  head  already  referred  to, 
all  the  head  is  kept  shaved  in  summer  (until  the 
fifth  year),  except  two  tufts,  which  are  allowed  to 
grow,  one  on  each  side  of  the  head;  these  are  sup- 
posed to  be  charms,  and  are  said  to  be  conducive 
to  health.  This  custom  of  head  shaving  is  surely 
conducive  to  cleanliness,  if  not  to  health;  for  lice, 
which  are  altogether  too  numerous  in  China,  are 
thus  deprived  of  a  harboring  place.  Among  the 
extremely  poor,  the  girls,  as  well  as  the  boys,  wear 
but  little  if  any  clothing  in  warm  weather  until 
they  reach  their  seventh  year.  Some  wear  simply 
an  apron-shaped  pocket  or  cluster  of  pockets,  such 
as  a  carpenter  uses  to  carry  nails  in.  Sometimes 
these  pockets  are  beautifully  embroidered.  After 
the  seventh  year  the  girls  wear  garments  that  are 
so  made  as  to  show  but  little  of  the  form  of  the 
body.  Their  clothing  as  a  rule  is  becoming,  neat, 
and  exceedingly  modest. 

The  two  fundamental  articles  of  dress  for  a 
woman  are  a  pair  of  loose  trousers  and  an  equally 
loose-fitting  tunic.  A  lady's  trousers  are  exactly 
the  same  in  shape  as  a  man's.  Although  a  woman 
is  considered  dressed  when  she  has  on  trousers  and 


Dress,  Work,  and  Amusements.  27 

tunic,  yet  a  lady  of  high  standing  always  wears 
a  thin  innermost  garment,  that  fits  closely  and  is 
tightly  buttoned  up;  while  her  outer  garments  vary 
in  number  and  color  according  to  the  weather  and 
her  age.  Girls  usually  wear  brighter  colors  than 
women.  A  divided  skirt  is  also  very  commonly 
worn.  This  has  the  trace  of  the  trousers  about  it; 
"trousers  unfinished,"  as  it  were,  one  piece  hangs 
in  front  down  to  the  ankles,  as  an  apron,  and 
another  piece  hangs  behind  in  the  same  way;  while 
embroidery  and  numerous  plaits  in  vertical  lines 
adorn  them.  A  girdle  of  cord  is  worn  about  the 
waist,  to  which  are  fastened  the  lower  undergar- 
ments. The  laboring  women  wear  black,  while  the 
indoor  females  usually  wear  blue  dresses,  made  from 
grass-cloth  and  cotton.  The  well-to-do  classes 
array  themselves  in  embroidered  dresses  made  of 
silk,  satin,  and  crape.  The  dress  fits  tightly  about 
the  throat,  has  wide  sleeves,  that  frequently  expose 
the  wrists  and  hands  adorned  with  bracelets  and 
rings. 

The  styles  in  dress  change  so  slightly  and  so 
gradually  that  the  superficial  observer  may  not  no- 
tice any  change  in  fashion.  About  the  only  thing 
that  has  ever  caused  a  complete  change  in  styles 
of  dress  has  been  a  change  in  dynasty,  although, 


28          Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

in  the  course  of  twenty-five  or  thirty  years,  the 
sleeves  may  be  noticed  to  be  a  little  wider  or  a 
little  narrower. 

Two  extreme  classes  alone  wear  hats,  the  large- 
footed  laboring  women  and  the  women  that  are 
admitted  to  court  society.  The  female  coolies  wear 
sun-hats,  two  or  three  feet  in  circumference,  made 
of  bamboo  and  coming  to  a  point  at  the  top.  The 
hats  of  mountain  women  and  girls  are  four  or  five 
feet  in  circumference.  They  are  made  of  straw, 
have  a  hole  in  the  center,  and  a  veil  hanging  down 
all  around  the  outer  edge.  These  females  wear 
their  hair  in  one  knot  on  the  top  of  the  head.  The 
hole  in  the  center  of  the  hat  is  placed  over  the  knot 
of  hair  and  long  hairpins  are  thrust  through  the 
knot,  thus  holding  the  hat  in  position  on  the  head. 
The  hats  of  the  court  ladies  are  of  the  same  general 
style  as  those  worn  by  their  husbands.  With  the 
afore-mentioned  exceptions  the  ladies  never  wear 
hats.  The  boat-women  frequently  tie  a  red  hand- 
kerchief over  their  heads.  A  broad  band,  either 
plain  or  embroidered,  is  sometimes  worn  across 
the  forehead  in  winter,  to  guard  against  intense 
cold.  One  writer  says: 

"In  all  ranks  of  society  the  hair  of  the  women 
of  China  is  always  beautiful;  it  is  always  black, 


o 


Dress,  Work,  and  Amusements.  29 

glossy,  and  luxuriant,  arranged  with  taste  and 
beauty,  adorned  with  flowers,  or  often  put  in  the 
shape  of  their  favorite  but  fabulous  bird — the  Chi- 
nese phoenix — a  long  fold  of  rich  dark  hair  reach- 
ing out  behind  the  head,  representing  the  tail,  with 
two  others  extending  from  the  side  of  the  head, 
representing  its  extended  wings,  while  another 
cluster  gracefully  bends  over  the  forepart  of  the 
head,  terminating  in  a  bright  metallic  appendage, 
representing  the  bird's  bill,  which  rests  upon  the 
forehead.  In  scarcely  any  grade  of  society  is  this 
beautiful  ornament  of  the  head  found  disheveled 
or  neglected." 

While  the  foregoing  description  is  in  the  main 
correct,  yet  there  are  some  styles  of  fixing  the  hair 
that  are  far  from  beautiful.  The  women  of  dif- 
ferent prefectures  arrange  their  hair  differently, 
and  a  traveler  can  tell  when  he  passes  from  one 
district  to  another  by  the  way  the  women  dress 
their  raven  locks.  Girls  always  wear  bangs.  A 
great  variety  of  hairpins  is  used,  from  a  common 
metallic  pin  to  costly  gold  pins  ornamented  with 
the  sacred  jadestone.  Hairpins,  it  is  said,  were 
first  used  in  China  about  three  thousand  years  ago, 
during  the  Chow  dynasty,  and  were  made  of  bam- 
boo wood.  Ivory  pins  were  first  used  about 


30          Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

651  B.  C.  Tortoise-shell  pins  came  into  use  about 
300  B.  C.  During  the  reign  of  the  great  Chi 
Huangte,  250  B.  C.,  gold  and  silver  hairpins  be- 
came the  fashion. 

A  daughter  of  China  seemingly  takes  more  pride 
in  her  ear-rings  than  any  other  portion  of  her 
toilet.  Wire  hoops,  three  or  four  inches  in 
diameter,  with  a  ball  on  one  end,  are  a  very  com- 
mon style  of  ear-ring.  A  cluster  of  gold  or  silver 
leaves,  resembling  different  tree  leaves,  fastened 
neatly  to  a  hook,  forms  another  style.  Still  another 
style  consists  of  an  "eardrop"  made  of  jade,  ivory, 
pearl,  silver,  or  gold.  Finger-rings  and  breastpins 
are  worn  by  all  classes. 

Possibly  there  is  no  nation  that  is  so  fond  of 
fans  as  the  Chinese.  Palmleaf  fans,  bamboo  fans, 
feather  fans,  paper  fans,  silk  fans,  fans  large  and 
fans  small,  fans  of  all  shapes  and  texture,  are  used. 
Gigantic  fans  are  carried  by  little  slave  girls  as 
they  accompany  their  mistresses  when  they  make 
their  fashionable  visits.  "The  silk  of  which  some 
of  these  fans  are  made  is  actually  spun  by  the 
silkworm  on  the  bamboo  frame  which  surrounds 
the  fans." 

A  deserted  wife  is  spoken  of  figuratively  as  an 
"autumn  fan,"  from  the  inscription  written  on  a 


Dress,  Work,  and  Amusements.  31 

fan,  and  sent  to  her  royal  master,  by  a  lady  of  the 
court  who  found  herself  deserted  by  her  lordly 
husband  and  cast  away  like  a  fan  in  autumn: 

"  This  silken  fan  then  deign  accept, 

Sad  emblem  of  my  lot, — 
Caressed  and  cherished  for  an  hour, 
Then  speedily  forgot." 

The  tiny  shoes  of  the  bound-footed  females  are 
made  of  cloth — sometimes  of  beautifully  embroid- 
ered silk  or  satin — the  sole  being  of  leather.  The 
large-footed  women  have  shoes  with  very  thick 
white  soles.  They  also  wear  socks  instead  of 
stockings.  Many  of  the  laboring  women  go  bare- 
footed or  simply  wear  straw  sandals. 

The  Chinese  government  undertakes  to  control 
the  dress  of  its  officers  and  their  wives.  Dr.  Gray 
describes  the  dress  that  the  law  requires  court 
women  to  wear  as  follows: 

"A  lady  attending  court  wears  a  hat  precisely 
similar  in  shape  and  texture  to  that  worn  by  her 
husband  on  such  occasions.  The  law  distinctly 
states  with  regard  to  the  winter  costume,  that  the 
hat  to  be  worn  shall  be  covered  with  dark  satin, 
and  the  inside  lined  with  dark  cloth.  The  brim 
is  to  be  turned  up,  which  gives  it  the  appearance 
of  what  used  to  be  known  as  the  'porkpie'  hat. 


32          Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

The  apex  must  be  adorned  with  a  tassel  of  red  silk 
so  long  and  so  thick  as  to  cover  the  entire 
top.  .  .  .  The  summer  hat  is  made  either  of 
fine  straw  or  very  thin  strips  of  bamboo  or  rattan ; 
the  outside  covered  with  very  fine  silk,  with  a 
tassel  of  red  silk  cords  on  the  top.  The  border 
must  not  turn  up.  The  rim  must  be  covered  with 
gold  lace  and  the  inside  lined  with  red  gauze. 

"To  the  back  of  the  hat  are  attached  two  long 
silk  ribbons,  which  hang  down  over  the  shoulders. 
A  simpler  hat  is  occasionally  worn.  The  outer  and 
inner  tunics  are  of  the  same  length.  From  the 
back  of  the  neck-band  of  the  outer  tunic  two  rib- 
bons hang  gracefully  down.  In  front  of  her  hat 
a  duchess  wears  three  gold  ornaments.  Around 
her  neck  is  a  purple  satin  scarf  which  hangs  down 
in  front.  The  front  portion  of  the  scarf  has,  in  the 
center,  a  fringe  of  gold  thread.  Above  this  is  a 
figure  of  a  phoenix,  and  below  it  that  of  a  dragon, 
embroidered  in  gold  thread.  Immediately  above 
the  fringe  is  fixed  a  large  pearl. 

"Three  ear-rings  are  placed  in  the  lobe  of  each 
ear,  and  from  each  ring  hangs  a  valuable  pearl. 
The  outer  tunic  worn  by  a  duchess  is  of  purple 
satin,  and  has  a  deep  border  of  gold.  On  the  front 
of  a  tunic  figures  of  two  dragons  are  embroidered 


Dress,  Work,  and  Amusements.  33 

in  gold  thread,  and  on  the  back  a  figure  of  one 
dragon  only.  From  the  back  of  the  neck-band  are 
suspended  two  long  silk  ribbons,  on  each  of  which 
are  sewn  several  precious  stones  or  pearls.  The 
inner  tunic  is  of  blue  silk,  and  has  a  deep  border 
of  gold  adorned  with  precious  stones.  On  the 
front  of  the  inner  tunic  a'  figure  of  a  dragon  is 
embroidered  in  gold  thread.  On  each  side  of  the 
tunic  figures  of  four,  on  each  cuff  a  figure  of  one, 
and  on  each  sleeve  a  figure  of  two  dragons  are 
embroidered.  From  the  back  of  each  neck-band  of 
the  inner  tunic,  two  long  ribbons  are  suspended, 
each  of  which  is  covered  with  pearls.  The  skirt 
worn  by  a  duchess  is  of  red  satin.  Upon  it  are 
embroidered  in  gold  thread  several  figures  of  walk- 
ing dragons." 

The  women  of  the  upper  classes  have  little  more 
to  do  than  to  see  that  the  household  duties  are  not 
neglected  by  the  slave  girls.  They  also  spend  much 
time  in  making  fancy  embroidery  and  various  kinds 
of  needlework.  Farmers'  wives  and  daughters  do 
as  much  of  the  field  work  as  their  husbands  and 
brothers.  Female  burden-bearers  go  to  the  timber- 
clad  hills  and  mountains,  cut  and  bring  home  or 
take  to  market  on  their  own  shoulders  from  sev- 
enty-five to  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  pounds  of 
3 


34          Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

wood.  Everything  is  sold  by  the  pound.  Women 
scavengers  are  to  be  found  in  every  city  and  village. 
Every  tea-hong  employs  scores,  if  not  hundreds, 
of  female  tea-pickers.  Flowers,  fruits,  vegetables, 
candies,  and  nuts  are  carried  from  house  to  house 
by  female  hucksters.  The  boat-women  and  girls 
frequently  man  the  smaller  river  crafts.  Needle 
manufacturers  employ  girls  to  file,  drill,  polish,  and 
sharpen  needles.  Mock  money  used  for  supersti- 
tious and  religious  purposes  is  mostly  made  by 
females.  These  laboring  women  board  themselves, 
and  get  but  from  fifty  to  one  hundred  cash  each 
day,  or  about  two  and  one-half  to  five  cents  in 
American  money. 

The  monotonous  life  of  the  females  of  the  inner 
apartments,  the  toilsome  existence  of  women  of  the 
common  people,  the  abject  drudgery  of  the  slave 
girls,  go  on  day  after  day,  with  few  or  no  amuse- 
ments to  relieve  the  humdrum  tide  of  affairs.  An 
occasional  visit  from  lady  friends,  a  wedding,  birth- 
day, or  religious  festival — when  females  feast  alone, 
unobserved  by  men — may  add  a  bright  spot  now  and 
then  to  the  otherwise  uneventful  life  of  the  high- 
class  women.  Sometimes  groups  of  women  may 
be  seen  at  a  theatrical  performance  in  some  temple 
court.  Wealthy  men,  especially  officers,  on  some 


Dress,  Work,  and  Amusements.  35 

special  occasions,  may  engage  a  theatrical  troupe 
to  give  a  weeks'  entertainment  in  the  central  court 
of  the  family  home.  This  affords  the  imprisoned 
females  a  period  of  pleasure  without  appearing  in 
public.  No  lady  ever  takes  part  in  a  theatrical 
performance.  Boys  dressed  as  females  impersonate 
women  and  girls.  Female  burden-bearers  will  occa- 
sionally set  down  their  loads  near  a  theatrical  plat- 
form in  the  village  or  city  temple,  and  enjoy  them- 
selves for  a  moment  in  spite  of  the  vulgar  epithets 
hurled  at  them  by  rude  men  and  boys.  Puppet 
shows  are  at  stated  times  held  in  front  of  the  shrine 
of  some  goddess,  or  in  the  house  court  of  some  one 
of  the  gentry,  for  the  especial  entertainment  of  the 
gentler  sex.  Blind  singing  women  are  frequently 
seen  in  the  large  cities.  "Toward  the  close  of  day 
numbers  of  blind  women,  neatly  dressed  and  guided 
by  aged  women,  may  be  seen  traversing  the  streets. 
They  are  professional  singers,  and  are  invited  into 
the  houses  and  shops  of  the  citizens  where,  for 
small  sums,  they  will  sing  nearly  the  whole  night 
long."  This  apparent  anomaly  in  Chinese  society 
of  having  public  female  singers,  gives  not  only  en- 
tertainment to  the  men  in  the  shops,  but  the  females 
of  the  household  enjoy  their  singing  in  the  recep- 
tion rooms  of  the  harems. 


36          Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

The  seventh  day  of  the  Chinese  New  Year  is 
a  special  holiday  for  ladies.  They  resort  in  large 
numbers  to  gardens  and  parks.  They  go  in  bands 
for  mutual  protection.  Little  footed  women  can 
be  seen  on  that  day,  toddling  along  on  their  crip- 
pled appendages,  supported  by  their  female  slaves. 
Sometimes  the  bondmaids  carry  their  mistresses  on 
their  backs.  This  outing  is  greatly  enjoyed  by  the 
fashionable  prisoners  of  the  inner  female  apart- 
ments. 

Promiscuous  dancing  is  unknown.  The  Chinese 
condemn  unequivocally  the  mingling  of  the  sexes 
as  seen  in  the  fashionable  Western  ball.  Their 
condemnation  of  this  curse  of  Occidental  society  is 
none  too  strong ;  but  they  have  gone  to  the  opposite 
extreme,  and,  by  the  absurd  seclusion  of  respectable 
women,  drive  many  men  to  seek  female  society  in 
the  company  of  a  certain  class,  "who,  in  order  to 
fit  them  for  their  life,  are  educated  in  music  and 
taught  such  accomplishments  as  will  render  their 
society  more  acceptable." 


CHAPTER  III. 

THEIR  STATUS  IN  THE  HOME  AND 
SOCIETY. 

THE;  position  that  woman  occupies  in  China  is 
far  below  that  allotted  to  her  in  Christian  lands, 
but  it  is  above  her  position  in  India  and  many  other 
heathen  countries.  The  ancient  sages  of  China 
taught  that,  after  boys  and  girls  reached  the  age 
of  seven,  "they  should  not  occupy  the  same  mat, 
nor  eat  together."  Among  the  middle  and  upper 
classes  the  girls  are  not  allowed  to  hang  their 
clothes  on  the  same  pegs  that  their  brothers  do, 
nor  may  they  use  the  same  place  to  bathe  in.  The 
wife  should  not  eat  with  her  husband.  Among  the 
lower  and  poorer  classes  these  non-essential  cus- 
toms are  not  observed.  China's  greatest  teacher 
says:  "Man  is  the  representative  of  heaven,  and 
is  supreme  in  all  things.  On  this  account,  woman 
can  determine  nothing  for  herself,  and  should  be 
subject  to  the  three  obediences — to  her  father,  hus- 
band, and  son.  Her  business  is  to  prepare  food  and 

37 


38  Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

wine.  Beyond  the  threshold  of  her  own  apartments 
she  should  not  be  known  for  evil  or  for  good.  If 
her  husband  die,  she  should  not  marry  again." 

Confucius's  married  life  was  a  sad  one.  Some 
say  he  was  divorced.  His  unhappy  family  relations 
seem  to  have  embittered  the  life  of  womankind  in 
China  through  succeeding  generations.  Having 
seemingly  lost  faith  in  the  gentler  sex,  he  consigns 
the  wife  to  the  position  of  a  slave  instead  of  a 
helpmeet  for  her  husband.  The  necessity  of  having 
male  progeny  is  the  only  reason  he  assigns  for  the 
marriage  relations.  If  the  first  wife  is  not  the 
mother  of  a  son,  the  husband  is  justified,  by  Con- 
fucianism, in  taking  any  number  of  secondary  wives 
until  a  son  is  born.  "Of  all  unfilial  acts,"  says 
Mencius,  "that  is  the  most  unfilial,  to  fail  to  be  the 
father  of  a  son."  As  a  result  of  this  teaching  our 
almond-eyed  sister  has  her  homelife  darkened  with 
polygamy.  Even  though  she  is  the  primary  wife, 
she  is  not  the  first  woman  of  the  household. 

She  may  be  superior  to  the  secondary  wives, 
and  be  able  to  make  them  "toe  the  mark,"  yet  In 
that  household  is  a  woman  to  whom  she  must  show 
obedience,  and  that  is  the  mother  of  her  husband. 
She  is  practically  a  servant  to  her  mother-in-law; 
and  fondly  does  she  look  forward  to  the  day  when 


Status  in  the  Home  and  Society.  39 

she  will  be  a  mother-in-law,  and  make  her  son's 
wife  feel  her  authority. 

In  whatever  grade  of  society  the  woman  is  found 
she  is  held  in  subjection  to  the  will  of  her  husband. 
In  the  homes  of  the  well-to-do  and  rich  she  is 
completely  secluded  from  male  society,  and  among 
the  lower  classes  this  is  true  to  a  limited  extent. 
The  rules  of  seclusion  are  more  strictly  enforced 
in  some  localities  than  in  others.  Dr.  Nevius  gives 
an  instance,  in  the  province  of  Shantung,  of  a 
stranger  being  driven  out  of  a  village  by  a  mob  on 
account  of  taking  the  liberty  of  asking  a  woman  in 
the  street  the  road  to  an  adjoining  town.  "In 
many  places  the  women  are  found  thronging  the 
streets,  bearing  heavy  burdens,  performing  the  most 
menial  services,  competing  with  rough  and  half- 
naked  men  in  feats  of  strength  and  labor,  herself 
as  boisterous  and  masculine  as  they."  Strangers 
might  say  that  no  women  are  seen  in  the  streets  of 
China,  when  perhaps  one-third  of  the  burden-bearers 
they  pass  are  women  dressed  so  much  like  their 
brothers  that  it  is  difficult  to  distinguish  them. 

The  woman  of  the  upper  class  passes  a  life  of 
seclusion  and  comparative  idleness.  She  may  be 
called  wife,  but  to  her  it  is  a  hollow  title;  for  she 
is  more  the  plaything  of  her  husband.  She  can 


40          Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

spend  her  time  making  embroidery,  fashioning  her 
clothes,  ornamenting  her  tiny  shoes,  cultivating  her 
musical  talent,  entertaining  her  lady  callers,  or 
amusing  and  gratifying  the  whims  of  her  masterful 
husband  and  mother-in-law,  without  expecting  any 
return  for  her  kindness  and  love.  On  high  occa- 
sions, such  as  birthdays,  weddings,  and  some  fes- 
tivals, it  is  customary  for  the  tinseled  lady  of  the 
inner  apartments  to  invite  her  female  friends  to 
spend  a  day  or  two  with  her,  and,  while  her  lord 
is  entertaining  his  male  guests  in  the  gaudy  open 
reception-rooms,  she  and  her  lady  guests  while  awav 
their  time  playing  cards,  gossiping,  eating  and 
drinking,  and  enjoying  themselves  after  a  Chinese 
fashion.  The  sexes  never  mingle  in  their  social  feasts. 
When  the  female  guests  return  to  their  homes,  the 
hostess  gives  a  present  to  each,  consisting  of  a 
sponge-cake  and  other  sweetmeats.  If  she  fails  to 
do  this,  she  is  pronounced  by  her  guests  as  defi- 
cient in  breeding  and  very  inhospitable.  "It  is  easy 
to  determine  who  is  the  first  and  principal  wife  in 
the  establishment.  She  is  more  dignified  in  her 
appearance,  and  more  easy  and  free  in  her  manners, 
taking  the  lead  in  everything,  doing  the  honors  of 
the  house  and  table,  issuing  orders  to  the  servants, 
evidently  not  considering  the  smaller  wives,  as  they 


Status  in  the  "Home  and  Society.          4! 

are  sometimes  called,  on  an  equality  with  her.  She 
claims  to  be  the  mother  of  the  household,  and  looks 
upon  all  the  children  born  in  the  house  as  her  own." 
When  she  becomes  the  mother  of  a  son,  she  rises 
in  the  estimation  of  her  husband,  and  inside  that 
household,  henceforth,  is  treated  almost  as  his 
equal. 

The  woman  of  the  middle  class  has  more  free- 
dom than  her  more  exalted  sister.  She  is  sometimes 
seen  in  company  with  other  ladies,  enjoying  an  out- 
door ramble,  while  the  highest  lady  must  go  in  a 
closed  sedan-chair,  seeing  no  one  and  not  being 
seen.  The  tottering  gait  of  the  middle-class  women, 
caused  by  their  bound  feet,  as  well  as  the  silken 
garments  they  wear,  causes  them  to  be  distinguished 
from  the  female  laborer  and  domestic.  "These 
waving  willows,"  as  the  Oriental  poet  loves  to  call 
them,  steady  themselves  with  walking-sticks  or  by 
resting  on  the  shoulder  of  a  bondmaid  or  small 
boy  or  girl.  These  women,  in  spite  of  their  crip- 
pled appendages,  have  been  known  to  walk  ten  and 
fifteen  miles  a  day.  Although  they  are  allowed  to 
hobble  about  more  or  less  at  their  pleasure,  yet 
they  must  abide  in  the  female  apartments  when  their 
husbands  receive  guests.  It  is  a  bad  breach  of 
etiquette  for  a  guest  to  inquire  concerning  the  health 


42          Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

of  the  lady  of  the  house.  The  host  may  conde- 
scend to  answer  such  an  impolite  question  by  say- 
ing that  "the  occupant  of  the  inner  apartment  is 
well." 

The  wives  and  daughters  of  small  farmers  and 
laborers  spend  their  time  much  as  their  husbands 
and  brothers  do.  Their  feet,  if  bound  at  all,  are 
much  larger  than  those  of  the  higher  classes.  They 
work  in  the  fields,  carry  burdens,  and  do  all  kinds 
of  physical  labor,  except  carrying  sedan-chairs. 
While  engaged  in  menial  labor,  they  are  usually 
accompanied  by  husband,  brother,  or  son,  and  thus 
are  protected  from  the  rude  and  vulgar  rabble. 

The  females  of  the  boat-people — a  class  of  peo- 
ple who  are  compelled  to  live  in  boats — are  as  much 
at  home  in  managing  the  boat  as  the  males.  Many 
boats  are  manned  by  women,  while  the  men  are  on 
a  fishing  expedition.  I  once  saw  a  wife  at  one  oar 
and  three  children  less  than  twelve  years  of  age 
at  the  other,  pulling  against  the  tide,  while  the 
father  of  the  household  (or  boathold)  sat  leisurely 
smoking  his  pipe.  If  one  of  the  children  should 
fall  overboard,  the  mother  would  plunge  in  after 
it,  and  bring  it  back  in  safety  to  its  floating  home. 
The  land- women  call  these  boat- women  "water- 
fowls." 


Status  in  the  Home  and  Society.          43 

The  secondary  wives  of  the  higher  classes  are 
scarcely  more  than  servants  in  the  household  until 
they  become  mothers.  A  filial  son  is  expected  to 
marry  as  his  first  wife  the  girl  that  his  parents 
may  secure  for  him ;  but  he  is  at  liberty  to  choose 
his  own  secondary  wives.  Thus  it  sometimes  occurs 
that  the  first  wife  is  uncongenial,  and  a  second  or 
third  wife  becomes  the  favorite,  and  even  fares 
better  than  the  legal  head  of  the  harem. 

So  evil  are  the  effects  of  polygamy  that  many 
girls  commit  suicide  rather  than  marry.  Dr.  Gray 
gives  the  following  account :  "In  one  street  alone — 
in  the  Honam  suburb  of  Canton — I  knew  four 
families  in  which  there  were  ladies  who  positively 
refused  to  marry,  on  the  grounds  that,  should  their 
husbands  become  polygamists,  there  would  remain 
for  them  a  life  of  unhappiness.  To  avoid  marriage, 
some  become  Buddhist  or  Tauist  nuns;  others  pre- 
fer death  to  marriage.  During  the  reign  of  Tau- 
Kwang,  fifteen  virgins,  whom  their  parents  had 
affianced,  met  together,  upon  learning  of  the  fact, 
and  resolved  to  commit  suicide.  They  flung  them- 
selves into  a  tributary  stream  of  the  Canton  River, 
in  the  vicinity  of  the  village  where  they  lived.  The 
tomb  in  which  the  corpses  were  interred  is  called 
the  'Tomb  of  the  Virgins.'" 


44          Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

Polygamy  is  not  the  only  cause  of  trouble  in 
the  family.  The  husband  is  master,  and  he  not 
infrequently  shows  his  authority  by  beating  his 
wives.  Sometimes  these  poor  creatures  are  injured 
so  badly  that  they  die.  The  mother-in-law  usually 
sides  with  her  son  in  domestic  trouble,  and  thus 
adds  fuel  to  the  already  kindled  fire.  Arthur  H. 
Smith  gives  an  account  of  a  mother-in-law  whose 
family  consisted  only  of  herself,  her  son,  and  her 
son's  wife,  who  exercised  such  a  tyranny  over  the 
two  latter  that  they  were  never  allowed  to  sleep 
together.  If  the  son  wished  to  please  his  mother, 
he  did  so  by  beating  his  wife.  The  latter,  being 
accused  of  having  appropriated  to  her  own  use  a 
skein  of  thread  which  did  not  belong  to  her,  was 
so  abused  in  consequence  that  she  threw  herself  into 
a  well,  whence  she  was  rescued  by  her  husband. 
Her  mother  brought  her  to  the  foreign  home  in 
which  the  mother  was  employed  as  a  nurse,  and 
the  daughter,  having  passed  a  few  days  in  this 
seclusion,  remarked,  with  a  bitter  reference  to  her 
previous  abode,  that  "it  was  so  peaceful  that  it 
seemed  like  heaven." 

An  instance  came  under  my  own  observation 
that  shows  how  the  gospel  will  cause  the  mother- 
in-law  to  be  a  protector.  We  (the  missionaries  and 


Status  in  the  Home  and  Society.          45 

native  pastor)  had  been  holding  street  services  in 
a  large  village,  and  on  our  way  back  to  our  homes 
we  called  on  some  native  Christian  families.  As 
we  approached  the  home  of  one  of  these  families, 
we  heard  some  loud  weeping,  and  saw  two  women 
in  great  distress,  and  soon  found  out  that  the 
younger  of  the  two  women  had  just  received  a 
severe  whipping  by  her  husband,  and  his  mother, 
instead  of  siding  with  him,  reproved  him  for  his 
unkindness,  and  was  trying  to  console  her  daughter- 
in-law.  The  husband  said  his  wife  had  overcharged 
in  selling  some  goods,  and  he  thought  it  his  duty 
to  punish  her  for  so  doing.  His  mother  had  told 
him  she  believed  it  was  wrong  for  a  Christian  to 
beat  his  wife.  He  said  he  had  never  supposed  it 
was  wrong.  We  told  him  his  mother  was  right. 
He  went  to  his  wife  and  asked  her  to  forgive  him, 
which  she  did,  and  she  also  said  she  would  hunt  up 
the  person  whom  she  had  overcharged  and  make 
it  right.  This  shows  the  mellowing  influence  of  the 
gospel  on  a  Chinese  mother-in-law,  husband,  and 
wife.  It  might  not  be  a  bad  idea  for  some  so- 
called  Christian  people  in  America  to  try  the  same 
antidote. 

Husbands  sometimes  sell  their  wives  to  become 
the  wives  of  other  men.     When  this  is  done,  the 


46          Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

wife  must  give  her  consent.  A  document  is  drawn 
up  and  signed  with  the  names  of  the  husband  and 
wife,  stating  the  object  of  the  sale,  and,  after  it  has 
been  stamped  by  a  hand  or  foot  of  both  these  par- 
ties, smeared  over  with  black  ink,  it  is  turned  over 
to  the  purchaser. 

A  husband  can  divorce  his  wife  for  any  of  seven 
reasons,  to  wit :  unfilial  conduct  toward  his  parents, 
adultery,  jealousy,  loquacity,  theft,  virulent  disease, 
or  barrenness.  "There  does  not  seem  to  be  any 
lawful  reason  to  justify  a  wife  in  leaving  her  hus- 
band. The  idea  of  divorcing  her  husband  for  adul- 
tery, or  for  any  reason  whatever,  is  one  which 
excites  a  smile,  as  absurd  and  preposterous,  when- 
ever mentioned  to  the  Chinese.  Duty  with  her  is 
simply  and  solely  to  follow  her  husband,  submit 
to  his  caprices  and  the  domination  of  his  parents, 
until  death  releases  her,  or  she  is  sold  by  him  or 
divorced."  (Doolittle.)  There  are  three  reasons 
which  should  prevent  a  wife  from  being  divorced. 
If  she  has  been  faithful  to  his  parents  while  they 
lived ;  if  he,  being  poor  and  unknown  when  married, 
comes  to  honor  and  riches  while  she  is  his  wife; 
if  her  parents  are  dead  and  she  has  no  other  home 
to  which  she  can  go — these  reasons,  unless  the  case 


Status  in  the  Home  and  Society.          47 

be  a  very  exaggerated  one,  would  prevent  her  from 
being  divorced. 

When  the  first  wife  dies,  the  second  wife  does 
not  advance  to  her  place.  The  secondary  wives  are 
not  allowed  to  die  in  the  home  unless  they  have 
borne  children.  When  it  is  seen  that  death  is  ap- 
proaching, the  poor,  childless  creature  is  carried 
to  an  outhouse,  where  she  expires. 

If  the  husband  dies,  the  first  wife  is  supposed 
never  to  marry  again.  She  is  to  belong  to  the 
same  husband  in  the  future  world.  She  may  be- 
come a  secondary  wife  or  a  concubine  of  some  other 
man,  but,  in  the  Chinese  sense,  she  is  never  married 
again.  She  rides  in  a  red  bridal-chair  but  once. 
If  she  is  true  to  her  husband,  she  will  remain  in  his 
father's  family  in  perpetual  widowhood.  If  she  re- 
mains a  dutiful  daughter-in-law,  ever  showing  re- 
spect for  her  dead  husband,  and  faithfully  caring 
for  and  looking  after  the  education  of  his  children, 
some  one  may  call  the  emperor's  attention  to  her 
faithfulness,  and  he  may  direct  that  an  archway  be 
erected  to  commemorate  her  virtuous  deeds. 

It  may  not  be  generally  known  that  a  singular 
form  of  sutteeism  prevails  in  some  parts  of  China. 
It  is  not  done  by  burning  as  in  India.  Sometimes 


48          Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

the  widow  will  take  poison  (most  frequently  opium), 
and  lie  down  and  expire  beside  her  husband's  body. 
Some  drown  themselves,  others  starve  themselves, 
and  still  others  hang  themselves.  Sometimes,  when 
the  widow  is  loath  to  take  her  own  life,  her  own 
relations  and  those  of  her  husband  will  try  to  per- 
suade her  to  the  act,  hoping  to  have  the  family 
honored  by  having  a  memorial  portal  erected,  by 
command  of  the  emperor,  in  honor  of  the  devoted 
widow.  When  the  suttee  is  to  be  performed  by 
hanging,  a  scaffold  is  erected  in  or  near  the  house  of 
the  widow.  "At  the  appointed  time  she  ascends  the 
platform  and  sprinkles  some  water  around  on  the 
four  sides  of  it.  She  then  scatters  several  kinds 
of  grain  around  in  different  directions.  These  are 
clone  as  omens  of  plenty  and  prosperity  in  her 
family.  After  being  seated  in  a  chair  on  the  plat- 
form, she  is  generally  approached  by  her  own 
brothers,  and  her  husband's  brothers,  who  worship 
her.  This  is  sometimes  accompanied  by  the  offer- 
ing to  her  of  tea  or  wine.  When  everything  is  ready, 
she  steps  upon  a  stool,  and,  taking  hold  of  the  rope, 
which  is  securely  fastened  to  a  high  portion  of  the 
platform  or  the  roof  of  the  house,  adjusts  it  about 
her  own  neck.  She  then  kicks  the  stool  away  from 
under  her,  and  thus  becomes  her  own  murderer." 


Status  in  the  Home  and  Society.          49 

(Doolittle.)  The  story  is  told  of  a  widow  who,  after 
she  had  been  worshiped  on  the  scaffold,  suddenly 
remembered  that  she  had  forgotten  to  slop  the  pigs. 
She  excused  herself,  and,  promising  to  return, 
hastened  away  to  feed  the  swine,  and  never  re- 
turned. A  mandarin  who  had  come  to  honor  the 
occasion  with  his  presence,  and  do  obedience  to  the 
widow,  was  so  chagrined  that  no  mandarin  has 
ever  graced  a  suttee  with  his  presence  since  that 
day. 

As  singular  as  it  may  seem,  some  Chinese  women 
have  arisen  in  the  face  of  obstacles  until  they  occupy 
the  foremost  positions  in  the  empire.  During  the 
Tang  Dynasty  a  woman  occupied  the  throne  and 
ruled  China  with  an  iron  hand.  Although  she  was 
cruel,  yet  Empress  Wu's  reign  of  forty  years  was 
one  of  prosperity.  The  present  empress  dowager 
exercises  more  influence  in  the  empire  than  the 
young  emperor.  Another  anomaly  is,  that  the  most 
popular  idols  in  China  are  goddesses.  The  goddess 
of  mercy  is  worshiped  far  more  than  Buddha. 

As  sad  and  lonely  as  the  secluded  life  of  the 
Chinese  woman  is,  it  has  doubtless  been  more  or 
less  of  a  protection  to  her.  The  Chinese  women 
are,  as  a  rule,  virtuous.  Vile  women  can  be  found 
in  every  neighborhood;  but  they  were  kidnaped 
4 


50          Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

when  they  were  children,  or  parents  on  the  verge 
of  starvation  have  sold  their  daughters  to  a  life  of 
shame,  or  widows  have  been  sold  by  heartless  rela- 
tives of  their  husbands  to  become  the  victims  of 
vice.  Missionaries  are  sometimes  able  to  save  help- 
less girls  and  widows  from  this  living  death.  A  few 
years  ago  a  Christian  widow  was  about  to  be  sold 
by  heathen  relatives.  The  widow  made  known  her 
trouble  to  a  missionary  lady,  who  bought  her  for 
$120,  and  thus  rescued  her  from  a  life  of  sorrow. 
She  was  afterward  married  to  a  Christian  husband. 
When  China  becomes  a  Christian  nation,  then  can 
her  afflicted  daughters  enjoy  the  freedom  of  the 
women  of  Christendom.  Japan  has  undertaken  to 
give  to  her  daughters  Western  freedom  without  a 
Christian  civilization  to  protect  them,  and  the  result 
is  that  virtuous  women  in  Japan  are  relatively  fewer 
than  in  China. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

HOW  THEY  ARE  BETROTHED  AND 
MARRIED. 

THE  supreme  object  for  which  a  girl  is  born — 
so  teach  the  sages  of  the  Middle  Land — is  that  she 
may  get  married  and  become  the  mother  of  sons. 
The  dark-eyed  little  creature  has  this  so  deeply  im- 
pressed upon  her  mind  by  her  Confucian  parents 
that  it  is  seldom  that  a  girl  ever  enters  a  protest 
against  being  betrothed  to  whomsoever  her  parents 
or  guardian  may  choose  to  affiance  her.  As  a  rule, 
she  is  not  consulted  on  the  subject,  and  frequently 
knows  nothing  of  the  matter  until  the  betrothal  is 
consummated.  Then  it  is  too  late  to  object;  for 
betrothal  is  as  sacred  as  a  marriage  in  the  eyes  of 
the  Chinese.  Sometimes  the  young  miss  commits 
suicide  before  the  day  of  marriage;  but  this  is  not 
because  she  objects  to  the  marriage  relation,  so  much 
as  to  the  polygamous  features  of  Oriental  married 
life.  So  binding  is  a  betrothal  that,  when  her 
affianced  dies,  the  girl  is  expected  to  leave  the  house 
of  her  father,  and  spend  her  life  in  the  home  of  the 

51 


52  Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

parents  of  the  dead.  If  she  is  a  true  Confucianist 
she  will  never  marry,  but  lives  in  perpetual  seclusion 
as  a  virgin.  Sometimes  her  own  parents  and  those 
of  her  dead  fiance  will  try  to  persuade  her  to  remain 
in  her  fathers'  house  and  be  married  to  another  man. 
They  do  this  for  fear,  after  going  to  the  dead  young 
man's  parents'  home  to  live,  she  may  regret  her 
decision,  and  conclude  to  marry,  and  thus  bring 
disgrace  on  both  families.  In  case  of  a  betrothal, 
red  threads  are  interchanged  between  the  contract- 
ing parties.  The  Chinese  figuratively  say  the  feet 
of  the  affianced  are  bound  together  with  the  threads. 

When  a  betrothed  person  dies,  the  expression 
"broken  thread"  is  used  in  speaking  of  the  sad  event. 
The  custom  of  using  red  threads  is  explained  by 
the  Chinese  as  follows: 

"In  the  time  of  the  Tang  dynasty,  Ui-Ko  was 
once  a  guest  in  the  city  of  Sung.  He  observed  an 
old  man  by  the  light  of  the  moon  reading  a  book, 
who  addressed  him  thus :  'This  is  the  register  of  the 
engagements  in  marriage  for  all  places  under  the 
heavens.  In  my  pocket  I  have  red  cords,  with  which 
I  tie  the  feet  of  those  who  are  to  become  husband 
and  wife.  When  this  cord  has  been  tied,  though  the 
parties  are  of  unfriendly  families  or  of  different 
nations,  it  is  impossible  to  change  their  destiny. 


CHINESE  MARRIAGE  SCENE. 


(From  a  Chine 


Dior  painting.' 


How  Betrothed  and  Married.  53 

Your  future  wife/  said  the  old  man,  'is  the  child  of 
the  old  woman  who  sells  vegetables  in  yonder  shop  at 
the  north.'  In  a  few  days  Ui-Ko  went  to  see  her, 
and  found  the  old  woman  had  in  her  arms  a  girl 
about  a  year  old  and  exceedingly  ugly.  He  hired 
a  man,  who  went  and,  as  he  supposed,  killed  the 
girl.  Fourteen  years  afterward,  in  the  country  of 
Siong-Chiu,  was  a  prefect  whose  family  name  was 
Mo,  who  gave  Ui-Ko  in  marriage  a  girl  who,  he 
affirmed,  was  his  own  daughter.  She  was  very  beau- 
tiful. On  her  eyebrow  she  always  wore  an  artificial 
flower.  Ui-Ko  constantly  asking  her  why  she  wore 
the  flower,  she  at  length  said :  'I  am  the  daughter  of 
the  prefect's  brother.  My  father  died  in  the  city 
of  Sung  when  I  was  an  infant.  My  nurse  was  an 
old  woman  who  sold  vegetables.  One  day  she  took 
me  with  her  out  into  the  streets,  when  a  robber 
struck  me..  The  scar  of  the  wound  is  still  left  on 
my  eyebrow.' " 

The  red  threads  indicate  that  heaven  has  de- 
cided who  are  to  be  husband  and  wife  in  this  as  well 
as  the  next  life.  Ui-Ko  had  finally  to  marry  the  girl 
that  the  fates  had  fixed  upon  as  his  bride.  Thus 
since  the  betrothal  as  well  as  the  marriage  is  fixed 
by  Heaven,  and  is  for  the  future  world  as  well  as 
this,  many  persons  would  refuse  to  rebetroth  their 


54          Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

sons  to  girls  who  had  been  affianced.  Other  per- 
sons are  not  so  scrupulous  and  would  be  willing  to 
betroth  their  sons  to  girls  who  had  lost  their  affi- 
anced, providing  they  could  secure  them  on  more 
favorable  terms  than  girls  who  had  never  been  so 
engaged. 

Sometimes  parents  will  agree  to  betroth  their 
unborn  children,  providing  they  prove  to  be  of  op- 
posite sex.  Thus  many  a  little  girl,  when  she  comes 
to  know  anything  at  all  about  life's  relations,  finds 
she  is  bound  for  life  to  a  child-husband;  the  mar- 
riage proper  may  not  be  consummated  until  the 
children  are  grown.  Poor  people  sometimes  buy  a 
girl  baby  or  rescue  a  female  waif,  and  raise  her  in 
their  family  to  become  the  future  wife  of  their  son. 
Their  poverty  would  not  allow  them  to  pay  the  price 
of  a  grown  girl,  and  then  they  have  her  services  in 
their  family  while  she  is  growing  up.  Missionaries 
and  native  Christians  are  taking  radical  measures 
against  "child-betrothals,"  because  the  girl  is  prac- 
tically a  slave,  and  involuntary  marriage  is  consid- 
ered wholly  anti-Christian.  The  masters  of  bond- 
maids are  obliged  to  allow  them  to  marry,  but  stipu- 
lated prices  are  paid  for  them.  Such  marriages  do 
not  end  the  slave  life;  for  the  families  into  which 
they  marry  are  usually  poor,  or  they  become  sec- 


How  Betrothed  and  Married.  55 

ondary  wives  in  wealthy  families  and  servants  to 
a  brutal  husband,  domineering  mother-in-law,  and 
irritated  first  wife. 

If  the  girl  happens  to  be  an  only  child,  and  the 
father  does  not  desire  to  become  a  polygamist  that 
he  may  be  the  father  of  a  son,  her  parents  may  seek 
out  for  her  a  husband  who  is  willing  to  live  in  their 
family  and  be  to  them  a  son,  as  well  as  a  husband 
to  the  daughter.  The  young  man  not  only  agrees 
to  marry  the  girl,  but  he  must  also  assume  the  sur- 
name of  his  father-in-law,  and  thus  becomes  heir  of 
the  family  estate. 

If  the  girl's  father  is  rich,  he  may  seek  out  some 
well-educated  but  poor  young  man  who  may  aspire 
to  be  a  mandarin,  and  bestow  upon  him  a  valuable 
dowry  providing  he  will  marry  the  daughter,  and 
thus  enable  him  to  become  the  father-in-law  of  a 
literary  son-in-law,  who  may  some  day  be  a  civil 
officer. 

It  is  considered  a  great  disgrace  for  a  widow  to 
marry  again  as  a  primary  wife.  She  is  to  belong  to 
the  same  husband  in  the  future  existence;  hence  to 
marry  as  principal  wife  results  in  confusion  of  rela- 
tions in  the  next  world.  She  may  become  a  sec- 
ondary wife  to  some  man — which  is  simply  a  form 
of  concubinage — but  to  become  a  legal  wife  after 


56          Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

her  husband's  decease  is  considered  scandalous. 
No  son  of  a  rich  and  fashionable  family  ever  mar- 
ries a  widow  for  his  primary  wife.  Poor  families 
frequently  marry  a  son  to  a  widow,  because  widows 
are  cheaper  in  price  than  virgins.  Riding  in  the 
gorgeous  red  bridal-chair  is  a  privilege  only  allotted 
to  first  wives.  These  chairs  can  be  hired  at  any 
well-kept  "chair  stand."  They  are  arranged  so  that 
the  bride  is  completely  shut  in  from  public  gaze 
during  the  journey  to  the  home  of  the  bridegroom. 
She  rides  in  the  wedding-chair  but  once.  Widows 
and  other  women  that  become  secondary  wives  are 
quietly  taken  to  their  so-called  husband's  home  in  a 
common  black  sedan-chair. 

Although  many  Chinese  deny  that  girls  are  sold 
to  become  wives,  yet  it  is  undoubtedly  true  that  a 
stipulated  amount  is  paid  the  father  of  the  girl  before 
the  betrothal  is  consummated.  The  Chinese  explain 
this  by  saying  that  all  this  amount,  and  more  too, 
comes  back  to  the  bridegroom's  family  in  the  form 
of  dowry  from  the  bride's  family.  This  is  probably 
true  in  many  instances,  but  not  in  the  large  majority 
of  cases.  In  the  case  of  secondary  wives  the  pur- 
chaser examines  the  female  offered  for  sale,  as  a 
stock-man  would  examine  an  animal,  at  the  same 
time  making  remarks  about  her  in  a  depreciating 


How  Betrothed  and  Married.  57 

way,  thus  trying  to  make  her  father  believe  she  is 
not  worth  so  much  money,  and  endeavoring  to  buy 
her  at  a  lower  figure.  A  secondary  wife  is  much 
cheaper  in  price  than  one  that  is  to  occupy  the  po- 
sition of  first  lady  of  the  harem  under  the  husband's 
mother.  When  an  inferior  wife  enters  the  home 
for  the  first  time,  she  must  kneel  down  and  do  obei- 
sance to,  and  worship,  the  primary  wife. 

Persons  of  the  same  family  name  are  not  allowed 
to  marry;  but  in  some  provinces  relatives  of  a  dif- 
ferent clan  name  may  intermarry.  The  Chinese 
seem  to  think  that  sameness  of  name  and  not  same- 
ness of  blood  is  a  cause  of  incest  or  "confounds  the 
marriage  relation."  In  some  parts  of  the  empire 
a  man  is  not  allowed  to  marry  his  cousin,  nor  his 
stepdaughter,  nor  his  aunt,  nor  the  sister  of  his 
mother.  If  he  does  so,  he  is  put  to  death  by  strangu- 
lation. 

The  betrothal  and  marriage  customs  differ  in 
many  important  features  in  different  parts  of  the 
empire.  In  all  sections  a  go-between  is  employed, 
through  whom  all  important  transactions  are  con- 
ducted. These  match-makers  may  be  of  either  sex. 
They  are  paid  for  their  services,  and  depend  on  such 
work  for  a  livelihood.  The  go-between  is  first 
employed  by  the  family  of  the  young  man,  and  after 


58          Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

the  introductory  steps  in  the  betrothal  are  taken  and 
responded  to  favorably,  the  girl's  family  employ 
him  also. 

Marriage  is  more  the  business  of  the  family  than 
of  the  contracting  parties;  hence  the  young  people 
must  get  married,  whether  they  wish  to  or  not.  The 
girl  is  seldom  consulted  on  the  subject.  Frequently 
the  betrothal  is  consummated  without  the  girl  know- 
ing of  the  transaction.  She  is  then  notified,  and  told 
to  prepare  for  the  wedding,  that  may  take  place  at 
no  very  distant  day.  The  father  of  the  young  man 
calls  a  go-between  and  makes  inquiry  concerning 
a  young  lady  that  would  be  a  suitable  companion  for 
his  son.  The  middle-man  is  ever  ready  to  make  a 
suggestion.  He  is  supposed  to  be  acquainted  with 
all  the  families  in  the  region  round  about  that  may 
contain  marriageable  girls. 

Affiances  are  usually  made  between  young  people 
of  families  of  about  the  same  standing  in  society. 
The  go-between  receives  from  the  young  man's 
father  two  large  red  cards,  united  together  much  like 
the  back  of  a  book  are  fastened  together.  On  the 
outside  of  one  of  these  cards  is  a  figure  of  the  golden 
dragon,  and  on  the  inside  is  written  the  family  name, 
the  name  of  the  young  man,  his  age  and  year,  day 
and  hour  of  his  birth.  On  the  outside  of  the  other 


How  Betrothed  and  Married.  59 

card  is  a  gilt  figure  of  the  sacred  phoenix.  These 
are  the  contracting  cards.  The  middle-man  takes 
the  cards,  and  goes  to  a  certain  family,  and  inquires 
upon  what  conditions  the  parents  would  affiance 
one  of  their  daughters.  If  the  money  consideration 
is  satisfactory,  he  then  inquires  the  exact  hour  of 
the  girl's  birth,  and  immediately  repairs  to  an  as- 
trologer and  has  the  horoscope  of  both  young  people 
cast  to  see  if  they  were  born  upon  lucky  hours,  and 
if  their  marriage  will  be  fortunate.  He  then  makes 
his  report  to  the  father  of  the  young  man,  and  if 
everything  is  satisfactory,  the  betrothal  money  is 
paid,  and  after  threading  four  needles  with  red 
threads,  two  of  them  are  fastened  in  each  of  the 
red  contracting  cards,  and  the  go-between  is  dis- 
patched with  them  to  the  parents  of  the  girl.  The 
money  having  been  paid  over,  the  two  cards  are 
torn  apart.  The  one  with  the  dragon  on  it  is  kept 
by  the  girl's  family,  and  the  one  with  the  phoenix, 
after  the  girl's  family  name,  age  and  year,  month, 
day,  and  hour  of  birth  is  written  on  it,  is  returned 
to  the  young  man's  family.  These  cards  are  kept  in 
the  respective  families  as  evidence  of  the  betrothal 
contract.  Presents  are  interchanged  between  the 
families  in  honor  of  the  event.  The  marriage  may 
take  place  in  a  few  weeks,  and  it  may  be  delayed, 


60          Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

as  in  the  case  of  child  betrothals,  for  years.  If  the 
affianced  are  grown,  the  marriage  is  likely  to  take 
place  as  soon  as  the  various  arrangements  for  the 
wedding  can  be  perfected.  A  fortune-teller  selects 
a  lucky  time  for  the  event.  In  some  places  the  mar- 
riage is  always  at  night-time. 

A  few  days  before  the  wedding  the  bridegroom's 
father  sends  presents  of  various  eatables  to  the 
bride's  family.  He  also  sends  a  wild-goose  and  a 
gander.  The  gander  is  retained,  and  the  goose  is 
returned  to  the  young  man's  family.  The  Chinese 
say  that  a  wild-goose  and  a  gander  mate  but  once, 
and  hence  are  emblems  of  a  happy  marriage.  Each 
family  feasts  upon  its  respective  fowl  in  honor  of  the 
approaching  wedding.  Various  other  preliminary 
ceremonies,  too  numerous  to  describe — such  as  sift- 
ing out  the  "four  eyes"  from  the  bride's  clothes, 
"expelling  the  filth"  from  the  bridegroom's  clothes, 
the  taking  the  bridal  furniture  to  the  bridegroom's 
home,  etc. — are  gone  through  with  before  the  wed- 
ding-day. 

When  the  fortunate  day  arrives,  the  bridegroom 
sends  a  bridal  chair  for  the  bride,  accompanied  by 
a  band  of  music,  banner-bearers,  and  men  laden  with 
presents  for  the  bride's  family.  When  the  proces- 
sion reaches  the  home  of  the  girl,  certain  formalities 


How  Betrothed  and  Married.  61 

are  gone  through  with;  then  the  bride  enters  the 
chair,  wailing  as  if  her  heart  would  break ;  for  she 
then  ceases  to  be  numbered  in  her  father's  family. 
The  sedan  is  closed,  and  the  wedding  pageant  winds 
its  way  toward  the  bridegroom's  home.  Flaming 
torches,  discordant  music,  and  bursting  firecrackers 
proclaim  the  approach  of  the  marriage  train.  The 
great  doors  of  the  house  are  thrown  open,  and  the 
bridal  chair  is  carried  in  and  placed  in  the  inner 
court.  The  bridegroom,  arrayed  in  gorgeous  robes 
and  fan  in  hand,  approaches  the  chair,  and  knocks 
at  its  door.  The  bride  steps  out,  but  her  head  and 
face  are  completely  covered  with  a  red  veil.  She 
seems  to  be  perfectly  helpless.  Her  lady  attendants 
take  her  in  charge,  and  she  is  carried  on  the  back 
of  one  of  these  attendants  over  a  pan  of  redhot 
charcoal.  The  bridegroom  takes  his  position  on  a 
stool,  and  the  bride  kneels  down  and  knocks  her 
head  against  the  ground  before  her  lord.  An  at- 
tendant mingles  wine  in  two  wine-cups  that  are  tied 
together  with  red  strings.  The  bride  and  groom  sip 
together  the  mingled  wine,  as  an  emblem  that  their 
lives  are  to  become  one.  The  parents  of  the  bride 
and  groom  are  worshiped,  incense  is  burned  before 
the  ancestral  tablets,  and  prayers  are  offered  to  the 
family  ancestors  and  gods.  The  newly-married 


62          Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

couple  sit  down  on  the  side  of  the  bridal  bed,  and 
the  young  husband  lifts  the  veil  from  the  bride's 
face,  and  probably  looks  upon  her  countenance  for 
the  first  time.  The  marriage  company  now  enter 
the  banqueting  hall,  where  a  feast  has  been  prepared 
for  the  bridegroom's  parents.  The  bride  assumes 
the  position  of  waiter,  and  serves  wine  to  her  father- 
in-law  and  mother-in-law,  and  then  kneels  at  their 
feet,  and  twice  knocks  her  head  on  the  ground  before 
each  of  them.  After  this  a  repast  is  prepared  for  the 
bride.  She  takes  her  position  on  the  east  side  of  the 
table.  Her  mother-in-law  then  presents  to  her  a 
cup  of  wine.  Before  she  is  allowed  to  drink  it,  she 
must  kneel  at  the  feet  of  her  mother-in-law  and  do 
obeisance  by  knocking  her  head  against  the  ground 
before  her  ladyship. 

In  some  parts  of  China  the  bride  is  treated  to 
a  fusillade  of  foolish  questions  and  rude  remarks  by 
the  guests,  who  thus  seemingly  try  to  test  her  pa- 
tience. The  bridegroom's  relatives  and  friends  may 
keep  her  up  the  greater  part  of  the  night  plying  her 
with  riddles,  and  if  she  fails  to  solve  them  she  must 
pay  a  forfeit  of  cakes  to  each  of  the  parties  present- 
ing the  riddles.  This  singular  custom  is  accom- 
pained  with  much  drinking,  and  sometimes  drunken 
brawls  ensue,  resulting  in  murder. 


CHINESE  MARRIAGE  SCENE. 

Just  before  the  unveiling  of  the  bride. 


How  Betrothed  and  Married.  63 

The  wedding  proper  is  followed  by  feasts  and 
other  festive  gatherings  in  the  homes  of  the  friends 
of  the  bride  and  groom.  Weddings  among  the  rich 
are  attended  with  great  display  and  much  expense. 
The  common  people  and  poor  follow  suit  as  far  as 
they  can.  I  knew  of  a  boatman  whose  yearly  salary 
amounted  to  $50  to  spend  $300  in  betrothal  money, 
presents,  and  wedding  feasts.  It  would  take  six 
years'  salary  to  pay  his  wedding  expenses.  One 
redeeming  feature  in  all  this  display  and  expense 
is  that  it  occurs  but  once.  It  makes  no  difference 
how  many  secondary  wives  a  man  may  take,  there 
is  no  display,  and  the  only  expense  is  what  the  con- 
cubines actually  cost.  How  sad  is  domestic  life 
in  the  land  of  Confucius! 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE    HOUSES   IN   WHICH    THEY    LIVE, 

AND    THE    CUSTOMS    AND    RITES 

ATTENDING   THEIR   BURIAL. 

THE  family  tie  is  strong  among  the  Chinese. 
Although  the  men  and  women  have  but  little  to  do 
in  the  matter  of  choosing  their  life  companions,  yet 
they  frequently  manifest  much  affection  for  each 
other  in  their  domestic  relations.  The  people  are 
clannish,  and  migrate  but  little.  Most  of  them  live 
where  their  ancestors  settled  thousands  of  years  ago. 
Frequently  a  large  village  is  found  whose  inhabit- 
ants bear  the  same  family  name.  Probably  they  are 
descendants  of  one  ancient  family,  and  the  town  has 
grown  up  on  the  original  country-seat.  The  Chinese 
live  in  cities  or  villages.  Now  and  then  a  lone  house 
will  be  found  on  some  mountain  or  hill  side,  or  in 
some  cozy  dale;  but  this  is  quite  exceptional.  The 
streets,  as  a  rule,  are  crowded,  narrow,  and  filthy, 
and  are  thronged  with  hucksters,  urchins,  dogs,  cats, 
and  pigs.  The  business-houses  and  dwellings  are, 
scarcely  without  an  exception,  one  story.  The  fam- 

64 


Houses  in  Which  They  Live.  65 

ilies  of  most  of  the  shopkeepers  live  in  dirty, 
cramped-up  quarters  at  the  rear  of  their  places  of 
business.  In  these  dismal  places  the  females  are 
housed,  seldom  getting  a  fresh  breath  of  air  or  ray 
of  sunlight  to  invigorate  their  sluggish  existence. 
An  elderly  woman  may  assist  in  the  shop,  or  a 
bright-faced  girl  less  than  seven  years  of  age  may 
play  among  the  customers ;  but  the  other  females 
of  the  storekeeper's  family  are  supposed  to  be  in- 
visible. 

The  houses  of  the  poor  in  South  China  are  mud 
huts,  with  tile  or  thatch  roofs ;  the  floors  are  mother 
earth  pounded  flat  and  hard;  very  infrequently  tile 
floors  are  seen.  The  windows  are  holes  in  the  walls 
about  fourteen  inches  square,  across  which  wooden 
bars  are  placed. 

Rude,  unpainted  square  tables,  backless  wooden 
stools,  and  beds  consisting  of  two  wooden  benches 
about  four  feet  long,  upon  which  are  laid  some 
boards  covered  with  rush  matting,  make  up  the  nec- 
essary household  furniture.  In  winter,  straw  mat- 
ting is  used  on  the  beds  instead  of  the  rush  matting. 
In  North  China  the  bed  (kang)  is  made  of  brick, 
and  is  arranged  so  it  can  be  heated.  "To  Occidentals 
who  wish  to  feel  positive  heat  from  some  source  dif- 
fusing itself  in  grateful  currents  all  over  the  body 
5 


66          Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

a  Chinese  kang  on  a  cold  night  is  a  very  inadequate 
substitute  for  the  chimney-corner  or  the  stove.  .  .  . 
The  whole  family  is  huddled  together  on  this  ter- 
race (kang).  The  material  of  which  it  is  composed 
becomes  infested  with  insects,  and,  even  if  the  adobe 
bricks  are  annually  removed,  there  is  no  way  to  se- 
cure immunity  from  these  unwelcome  guests,  which 
are  fixed  occupants  of  the  walls  of  all  classes  of 
dwellings."  (Arthur  Smith.)  The  winter  bed- 
covering  is  simply  a  thick  cotton  comfortable;  in 
summer,  only  a  cotton  coverlet  is  used.  Feather- 
beds  and  spring  mattresses  are  never  used.  A  lady 
doctor  fresh  from  America  was  greatly  touched 
when  she  first  saw  the  sick  in  the  hospitals  lying  on 
hard  board  beds.  She  went  to  work  among  the  for- 
eign community  people,  and  soon  raised  $500,  with 
which  she  purchased  spring  cots  to  place  in  the  hos- 
pital. The  sick  were  cozily  put  to  rest  on  the  cots 
the  first  evening ;  but  what  was  the  doctor's  chagrin 
next  morning  to  find  all  her  patients  lying  on  the 
floor.  She  never  afterwards  could  get  one  of  them 
to  lie  on  a  spring  cot.  They  said  they  felt  as  though 
they  were  falling  all  the  time. 

The  framework  of  some  of  the  huts  of  the  poor 
is  wood,  while  the  parts  of  the  walls  between  the 
frames  consist  of  bamboo  lath  covered  with  mud 


Houses  in  Which  They  Live.  67 

plaster.  The  houses  of  the  middle  class  are  built 
of  the  same  material  as  the  huts  of  the  poor,  al- 
though some  of  them  are  extravagant  enough  to  use 
brick.  The  mud  houses  are  durable,  and  sometimes 
quite  comfortable.  The  foundations  are  made  of 
stone  or  brick.  Then  a  bottomless  and  topless  box, 
about  five  feet  long,  eighteen  inches  wide,  and  eight- 
een inches  deep,  is  placed  on  the  foundation  at  one 
corner,  and  the  box  is  pounded  full  of  damp  earth. 
Then  the  box  is  loosened  and  lifted  off,  leaving  a 
mud  brick  of  the  dimensions  of  the  box.  The  box 
is  then  placed  on  the  wall  at  the  end  of  the  newly- 
made  brick,  and  again  pounded  full  of  mud,  thus 
making  another  brick.  This  process  is  kept  up  until 
a  layer  of  mud  bricks  covers  the  foundation.  Then 
another  course  of  bricks  is  made,  and  another,  and 
another,  and  so  on,  until  the  required  height  is 
reached.  A  roof  is  then  put  on,  and  the  walls  are 
left  to  dry.  The  walls  are  usually  built  after  the 
rainy  season  is  over,  and  become  quite  dry  before 
the  wet  weather  begins  again.  They  get  exceedingly- 
hard,  and  often  stand  for  centuries.  Our  house  in 
China  was  a  Chinese  mud  house  foreignized;  we 
found  it  very  comfortable. 

The  swayback  roof,  with  eaves  turning  up  at  the 
corners,  is  the  universal  style.    All  the  houses  of  the 


68          Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

well-to-do  and  rich  are  built  around  open  inclosures 
or  courts.  The  American  house  is  usually  sur- 
rounded by  a  yard;  the  Chinese  yard  is  surrounded 
by  a  house.  Some  Chinese  houses  have  several  open 
courts,  varying  in  size  from  fifteen  feet  square  to 
fifty  by  a  hundred  feet.  The  smaller  ones  are  called 
heaven's  wells.  They  are  usually  paved  with  tile. 
Sometimes  they  are  decorated  with  trees  and  flower- 
ing plants,  and  form  convenient  breathing  places  for 
the  caged  inmates  of  the  inner  apartments.  No 
heating  stoves  are  found  in  Chinese  houses.  Little 
hand-braziers  or  earthenware  hand-stoves  are  car- 
ried by  all  classes,  and  are  commonly  fastened  by  a 
belt  to  the  front  of  the  body  underneath  the  clothes. 
If  these  little  stoves  do  not  furnish  sufficient  heat, 
the  deficiency  is  made  up  by  additional  clothing. 
The  cook-stoves  are  mud  ranges  about  three  feet 
high,  three  feet  wide,  and  as  long  as  need  be,  accord- 
ing to  the  number  of  the  members  of  the  family. 
The  kitchens  are  generally  in  front  of  the  houses. 
The  outside  of  a  large  Chinese  house  presents 
a  blank  appearance.  The  windows  and  nearly  all 
the  doors  open  into  the  court,  leaving  the  outer  walls 
devoid  of  openings,  except  the  large  double  doors 
in  the  front  of  the  building.  The  dwellings  of  the 


KUSHAN  MONASTERY  AND  MOUNTAIN  NEAR  FOOCHOW. 


Houses  in  Which  They  Live.  69 

wealthy  are  not  only  supplied  with  the  best  of  Chi- 
nese furniture,  porcelain  and  lacquer,  but  elegant 
foreign  pictures,  sofas  and  bric-a-brac  are  frequently 
seen  in  them  also. 

The  houses  of  the  officials  are  built  according  to 
certain  prescribed  laws.  The  following  description 
of  the  house  of  an  officer  of  the  first  class  can  be 
taken  as  a  sample  of  the  best  houses  in  China :  The 
foundation  must  be  twenty  inches  deep.  The  house 
must  have  nine  open  courts,  each  surrounded  with 
private  apartments.  The  pillars  that  support  the 
vaulted  roofs  must  be  of  wood  painted  black.  The 
ridge-beams  of  the  vaulted  roofs  are  gilded,  and  fig- 
ures of  flying  dragons  decorate  the  roofs.  In  the 
private  apartments  the  roofs  are  painted  with  images 
of  dragons,  phoenixes,  and  cheluns.  Porcelain  fig- 
ures of  dragons,  dolphins,  and  cheluns  adorn  the 
outside  of  the  roofs.  In  the  front  of  the  house  is  a 
large  gate  with  a  vaulted  roof;  the  gate  has  three 
doorways.  The  doors  are  painted  green  or  black, 
and  have  two  large  copper  rings  supported  by  lion's 
heads  made  of  the  same  material.  In  front  of  the 
door  is  a  high  wall  built  to  keep  out  spirits,  which 
are  supposed  always  to  go  in  a  straight  line,  and 
hence  are  not  able  to  find  their  way  around  the  wall. 


70          Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom 

The  windows  are  ornamented  with  lattice-work  and 
(glass  being  never  used)  wooden  blinds,  which  are 
shut  at  night-time  to  keep  out  the  cold. 

The  houses  are  seldom  swept.  Among  the  mid- 
dle and  lower  classes,  dogs,  cats,  chickens,  pigs,  and 
even  cattle,  may  be  found  in  the  house  courts.  The 
cats,  dogs,  chickens,  and  hogs  find  their  way  into 
the  central  reception-room.  Ancestral  tablets  and 
the  family  gods  have  niches  and  shrines  set  apart 
for  them  in  all  the  houses.  There  is  a  neglected, 
dreary,  tumble-down  appearance  to  nearly  all  the 
Chinese  dwellings.  Everything  seems  to  be  in  a 
state  of  decay. 

The  Chinese  woman,  whether  her  home  be 
a  thatch-roofed  mud  hut  or  gilded  palace,  knows 
nothing  of  the  freedom  and  little  of  the  com- 
fort that  her  Western  sisters  enjoy;  for  she  is  a 
slave  girl,  a  plodding  laborer,  or  a  tinseled  play- 
thing in  the  house  of  her  lord.  Her  home  is  her 
prison,  and  her  husband  is  the  prison  master. 

The  burial  customs  of  the  Chinese  are  exceed- 
ingly sad,  although  in  a  sense  interesting.  It  is  a 
very  common  thing  to  find  bodies  of  dead  infants 
wrapped  up  in  matting,  lying  beside  the  city  walls, 
floating  in  the  streams,  or  suspended  from  the 
branches  of  trees,  to  keep  them  from  being  devoured 


Houses  in  Which  They  Live.  71 

by  dogs;  or  hid  away  in  baby  houses — small  struc- 
tures with  a  small  hole  in  the  side,  that  have  been 
erected  for  that  purpose.  These  bodies  being  most 
frequently  female,  have  led  many  persons  to  think 
that  infanticide  is  still  more  common  that  it  really  is. 
Superstition  more  frequently  than  poverty  is  the 
cause  of  this  denial  of  burial  to  infants.  The  par- 
ents, as  a  rule,  take  the  utmost  care  of  the  sick  baby, 
and  seemingly  do  all  in  their  power  to  restore  it  to 
health ;  but  as  soon  as  the  little  one  dies,  the  parental 
affection  is  turned  to  hate,  and  it  is  called  a  "Twan- 
ming  kwei" — short-lived  devil.  Its  body  is  supposed 
to  have  been  possessed  with  the  spirit  of  a  deceased 
creditor  of  a  former  state  of  existence.  The  child 
is  regarded  as  an  intruding  enemy,  which  has  been 
living  off  of  the  family  and  trying  to  exact  satisfac- 
tion for  the  old  debt;  it  has  occasioned  a  great 
amount  of  trouble,  expense,  and  sorrow,  and  has 
left  nothing  but  utter  disappointment  to  the  care- 
worn parents.  In  their  indignation,  the  father  and 
mother  cast  out  the  uncoffined  body,  sweep  the 
house,  light  firecrackers,  and  beat  gongs  to  drive 
away  the  intruding  spirit,  that  it  may  never  enter 
the  house  again.  Heathenism  and  superstition 
change  loving  parents  into  hateful  rejecters  of  their 
own  offspring.  The  corpses  of  all  children  are  not 


72          Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

so  treated;  but  many  are,  and  especially  those  of 
girl  babies. 

When  an  adult  is  about  to  die,  the  burial  clothes 
are  brought  and  placed  beside  the  dying  person. 
The  family  all  surround  the  bed,  and  as  soon  as  the 
breath  is  out  of  the  body,  they  all  break  out  simul- 
taneously into  loud  weeping  and  wailing.  They  say 
they  do  this  as  a  formal  adieu  to  the  departed.  All 
beyond  death  is  enshrouded  in  darkness ;  hence  they 
light  candles  and  burn  incense  in  order  to  light  the 
spirit  on  its  way.  The  body  is  dressed,  and  the  old- 
est son  approaches  and  kneels  down  before  the  dead, 
and  places  wine,  vermicelli,  and  rice  to  the  lips  of 
the  corpse  three  times,  while  the  other  members  of 
the  family  kneel  around,  and  pour  out  their  lamen- 
tations. Immediately  after  the  offering  of  rice, 
vermicelli,  and  wine,  a  miniature  sedan-chair  and 
diminutive  chair-bearers  made  of  bamboo  paper,  to- 
gether with  four  cups  of  wine  and  eight  cakes,  are 
burned.  The  chair  and  the  chair-coolies  are  intended 
for  the  use  of  the  dead  in  the  unseen  world,  and  are 
spiritualized  by  fire ;  for  it  is  supposed  that  the  spirit 
would  prefer  to  ride  than  to  go  afoot  in  the  infernal 
regions ;  the  cakes  are  to  feed  the  coolies. 

When  the  body  is  placed  in  the  coffin,  all  the 
relatives  again  break  forth  with  loud  cries  and  lam- 


Houses  in  Which  They  Live.  73 

entations.  Ashes,  lime,  and  bundles  of  pith  are 
placed  in  the  coffin  with  the  corpse.  The  coffin, 
which  is  made  of  heavy  thick  plank,  is  then  closed 
and  hermetically  sealed.  In  the  case  of  the  rich,  it 
is  painted ;  every  seventh  day  it  is  painted  again 
until  the  forty-ninth  day,  when  the  seventh  coat  of 
paint  or  lacquer  is  put  on.  Then  it  is  ready  for 
burial,  providing  a  lucky  place  has  been  found  in 
which  to  bury  the  dead.  One  spirit  of  a  Chinese 
that  is  supposed  to  sleep  with  the  body — for  every 
Celestial  is  supposed  to  have  three  spirits,  one  of 
which  sleeps  in  the  coffin — remains  in  the  room 
with  the  unburied  body  until  the  interment  takes 
place ;  and  if  the  body  is  buried  in  an  unlucky  place, 
this  spirit  can  not  rest,  but  comes  back  and  haunts 
the  relatives  until  the  body  is  buried  in  a  lucky  place. 
While  the  coffined  body  is  kept  in  the  house,  incense 
is  continually  burned  before  the  dead.  A  table, 
chair,  and  a  wooden  framework  made  of  bamboo 
are  placed  in  the  presence  of  the  spirit.  An  incense- 
bowl,  chopsticks,  rice-bowl,  and  wine-cup  are  placed 
on  the  table  for  the  accommodation  of  the  spirit. 
A  longevity  picture — a  likeness  of  the  departed — 
is  hung  upon  the  wall.  All  this  is  done  for  the  com- 
fort and  convenience  of  the  spirit.  The  spirit  not 
being  able  to  talk,  its  wants  are  discovered  by  the 


74          Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom 

flipping  of  two  copper  cash  that  have  been  tied 
together.  "When  the  family  wish  to  ask  anything 
of  the  dead,  these  cash  are  taken  by  some  one  and 
held  in  the  smoke  of  the  incense  kept  burning  on 
the  table,  the  person  at  the  same  time  making  the 
inquiry  or  stating  the  circumstances  in  such  a  way 
that  an  affirmative  or  negative  reply,  'yes'  or  'no,' 
can  be  given.  When  he  has  done  speaking,  the  cash 
are  dropped  on  the  table.  If  their  relative  positions 
on  the  table  are  the  same  as  when  dropped,  the  reply 
given  by  the  deceased  to  the  question  asked  is  re- 
garded as  affirmative.  If  different,  the  reply  is  re- 
garded as  negative." 

Relatives  sleep  beside  the  coffin.  They  bring  hot 
water  in  a  basin  every  morning  to  the  side  of  the 
coffin,  that  the  dead  may  wash;  food  is  brought  at 
meal-time  and  placed  beside  the  coffin,  and  when 
bedtime  comes  the  members  of  the  family  bid  the 
dead  good-night. 

These  peculiar  customs  are  kept  up  until  the 
forty-ninth  day,  when  the  family,  if  rich,  place  a 
large  supply  of  uncooked  food,  wood,  wine,  and 
water  on  the  table.  An  abundance  of  mock  money 
is  also  provided  and  burned ;  it  is  supposed  this  be- 
comes real  money  in  the  other  world.  This  is  all 
done  to  give  the  dead  a  gentle  hint  that  she  must 


Houses  in  Which  They  Live.  75 

henceforth  cook  her  own  food,  and  must  also  pur- 
chase more  when  this  supply  is  gone,  because  the 
relatives  do  not  intend  to  cook  the  food  or  make  pur- 
chases for  her  any  longer.  Sometimes  clothes,  serv- 
ants, homes,  and  furniture  made  of  paper,  are 
burned,  and  thus  sent  on  to  the  spirit-world;  for  it 
is  thought  that  the  spirit  will  have  need  of  all  these. 
When  the  family  can  afford  it,  priests  are  hired  to 
take  general  charge  of  most,  if  not  all,  of  these 
ceremonies.  These  priests  also,  at  stated  times,  beat 
gongs,  ring  cymbals,  and  chant  weird  liturgies  in 
order  to  pacify  and  bring  repose  to  the  disembodied 
soul. 

Mourning  for  a  mother  continues  for  twenty- 
seven  months.  During  all  this  time  no  silk  is  worn ; 
officials  resign  their  offices  and  retire  from  public 
life.  Confucius  was  in  retirement  three  years  after 
the  death  of  his  mother. 

In  1882,  Li  Hung  Chang  resigned  his  official 
position  and  retired  to  mourn  the  death  of  his 
mother.  The  government  was  passing  through  try- 
ing circumstances,  and  could  not  do  without  his 
wise  counsel  for  twenty-seven  months;  hence  the 
emperor  and  the  queen  regent  requested  him, 
after  one  hundred  days  of  mourning,  to  return 
to  his  official  duties.  They  said:  "The  ques- 


76          Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

tions  of  the  hour  are  attended  with  much  diffi- 
culty, and  the  viceroy  should  struggle  to  repress 
his  private  sorrow,  looking  upon  the  affairs  of 
State  as  of  the  first  importance,  and  striving  to 
make  some  return  to  us  for  our  kindness  to  him. 
This  will  be  the  conduct  that  will  inspire  his 
mother's  mind  with  the  comforting  conviction  that 
her  son,  following  the  precepts  early  instilled  into 
him,  is  devoting  himself  to  the  service  of  his  coun- 
try, and  fervent  is  our  hope  that  this  view  of  the 
matter  will  commend  itself  to  the  viceroy." 

The  great  viceroy  protested  earnestly  against  re- 
turning to  duty  before  the  appointed  days  of  mourn- 
ing were  over.  He  said:  "A  sense  of  shame  would 
continue  to  harrass  him.  He  therefore  prays  their 
Majesties,  in  pitying  recognition  of  the  reality  of 
their  foolish  servant's  grief,  to  recall  their  com- 
mands and  graciously  permit  him  to  vacate  his  post 
and  observe  the  full  term  of  mourning;  that  the 
autumn  frosts  and  spring  dews  may  in  the  course 
of  time  witness  some  alleviation  of  his  bitter  regrets. 
.  .  .  Thus,  little  by  little,  now  with  loud  weep- 
ing and  now  with  silent  sobs,  has  their  Majesties' 
servant  told  them  his  piteous  tale;  and  the  anxiety 
with  which  he  awaits  their  commands  is  beyond  his 


Houses  in  Which  They  Live.  77 

power  to  express."  His  wishes  were  not  granted, 
and  he  was  obliged  to  return  to  the  duties  of  State 
at  the  end  of  one  hundred  days  of  mourning. 

The  soul  of  the  deceased  that  is  to  be  born  again 
must  linger  in  the  infernal  regions  until  the  time 
of  rebirth  comes.  A  sort  of  a  servant  imp  or  devil 
is  furnished  by  the  kings  of  Hades  to  pilot  this  soul, 
so  it  will  not  lose  the  way  to  the  land  of  shades.  The 
relatives  are  anxious  that  the  little  imp  shall  do  his 
work  faithfully ;  hence  a  goodly  supply  of  rice,  a  rice- 
bowl,  and  chopsticks  are  placed  for  his  use  on  the 
table  in  front  of  the  dead.  Mock-money  is  also 
burned,  to  furnish  the  imp  with  some  ready  cash 
to  meet  the  expenses  of  the  journey. 

The  third  soul  goes  into  the  ancestral  tablet,  and 
its  spiritual  desires  are  satisfied  by  the  frequent 
burning  of  incense,  offerings  of  food  and  wine,  as 
well  as  almost  daily  worship  by  the  relatives  that 
linger  on  the  shores  of  time.  The  poor  bury  their 
dead  almost  immediately  after  death — if  they  bury 
the  body  at  all.  They  can  not  afford  the  great  ex- 
pense attending  the  regular  and  continuous  cere- 
monies for  the  dead.  These  sudden  burials  are 
termed  "blood  burials,"  and  are  considered  disgrace- 
ful. Frequently  the  corpses  of  the  poor  are  put  in 


78          Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

rude  unpainted  coffins,  and  left  for  years  unburied, 
until  some  charitable  persons  inter  the  neglected 
bodies. 

The  well-to-do  and  rich  should  be  buried  at  the 
end  of  forty-nine  days.  Frequently  the  priests  who 
have  been  hired  to  find  a  lucky  burial-place  have 
been  unable  to  find  a  suitable  spot.  (The  longer 
the  priests  can  put  off  the  funeral  the  more  money 
they  are  likely  to  get  for  their  services.)  Fre- 
quently the  last  rites  are  delayed  for  years.  The 
coffined  bodies  are  kept  in  the  houses  of  the  rela- 
tives, or  stored  away  in  little  rest-houses,  or  covered 
with  waterproof  matting  and  placed  in  the  dense 
shade  of  some  sacred  banyan-tree.  There  are  mul- 
tiplied thousands  of  unburied  coffins,  with  bodies  in 
them,  of  rich  and  poor,  in  the  Fuh-Kien  province,  and 
possibly  in  all  the  provinces  in  China.  Visitors  are 
frequently  put  to  sleep  in  rooms  containing  the  cof- 
fined dead.  White  is  the  badge  of  mourning.  The 
relatives  of  the  dead  wear  coarse  white  garments. 
Men  wear  white  strings  braided  into  their  queues, 
and  white  buttons  on  their  caps.  The  rich  are  buried 
with  much  pomp  and  display.  In  Central  China  the 
dead  are  buried  near  the  surface,  and  a  conical 
tumulus  is  built  over  the  grave.  In  the  Fuh-Kien 
province  the  omega,  or  horseshoe,  tomb  is  the  style. 


A  DECEASED  WIFE  OF  THE  EMPEROR  OF  CHINA. 


Houses  in  Which  They  Live.  79 

The  graves  of  the  poor  are  much  the  same  as  the 
graves  in  America.  Sometimes  these  graves  are 
plastered  over  with  cement  or  artificial  stone.  After 
many  years  the  graves  of  the  poor  are  opened;  the 
bones  are  taken  out  and  sealed  up  in  small  earthen 
pots,  and  then  reburied,  and  the  old  grave  is  used 
again  for  the  body  of  some  other  poor  son  or  daugh- 
ter of  Adam. 

The  Chinese  have  been  burying  in  the  same 
graves  for  three  thousand  years.  Vast  stretches  of 
country,  mostly  hillsides,  are  literally  covered  with 
graves  for  miles  and  miles.  "What  a  solemn 
thought  that  all  these  myriads  have  gone  down  to 
fill  idolatrous  graves,  without  any  knowledge  of  the 
God  that  made  them,  and  of  Jesus  Christ  whom  he 
has  sent!"  (Nevius.)  If  they  had  any  knowledge 
of  the  true  God,  that  knowledge  had  been  bedimmed 
by  sin  and  beclouded  by  superstition  and  idolatry. 


CHAPTER  VI. 
THEIR  RELIGIOUS  CONDITION. 

THE  Chinese  are  decidedly  religious;  this  is  es- 
pecially true  of  the  females.  Temples,  wayside 
shrines,  altars,  and  ancestral  halls  abound.  I  have 
noticed  extravagant  statements  in  the  American 
newspapers  and  magazines  to  the  effect  that  the 
temples  in  China  were  falling  into  disuse,  and  that 
the  people  were  forsaking  the  gods  of  their  fathers, 
and  that  if  Christianity  were  not  soon  accepted  by 
the  people  the  Chinese  erelong  would  be  like  the 
Hawaiians  were,  when  the  missionaries  first  landed 
at  Honolulu,  without  a  religion  and  without  objects 
of  worship.  So  far  as  my  observation  went,  I  found 
no  warrant  for  such  radical  statements.  The  first 
temple  I  visited  was  being  thoroughly  remodeled 
and  repaired,  and  so  I  found  many  temples  under- 
going repairs.  Christianity  is  making  rapid  progress 
in  China,  but  it  is  doing  so  by  rooting  out  and  dis- 
placing, not  three  religions  that  have  lost  their  grip 
upon  the  masses,  but  three  religions  that  are  deeply 
rooted  in  the  hearts,  lives,  and  practices  of  the  peo- 

80 


Religious  Condition.  81 

pie.  It  may  be  said  that  the  temples  are  not  kept 
free  from  dust,  cobwebs,  and  vermin;  that  many 
of  them  have  a  torndown  and  neglected  appearance. 
All  this  is  equally  true  of  the  homes  of  the  people 
that  frequent  them.  The  Chinese  never  repair  or 
clean  anything  until  circumstances  compel  them  to 
do  so.  As  a  rule  the  temples  are  kept  in  a  better 
state  of  repair  than  the  dwellings  of  the  masses. 

Confucianism  assigns  women  to  a  position  of 
slavery,  yet  multiplied  thousands  of  Chinese  women 
are  Confucianists.  Since  Confucius  taught  that  the 
female  should  be  subject  to  the  three  obediences — 
to  her  father,  husband,  and  son — it  seems  strange 
that  the  women  are  such  devout  worshipers  of  the 
sage. 

The  teaching  of  Confucianism  concerning  ances- 
tral worship  may  be  the  bond  that  binds  the  heart 
of  womankind  to  a  system  that  degrades  the  gentler 
sex.  If  a  woman  is  faithful  in  impressing  the  cen- 
tral doctrine  of  the  Confucian  system,  filial  piety, 
upon  the  minds  of  her  children,  she  will  not  only  be 
obeyed  by  her  offspring,  but  will  also  be  worshiped 
by  them.  Her  descendants  will  prepare  an  ancestral 
tablet  in  which  one  of  her  spirits  will  dwell  (she 
is  supposed  to  have  three  spirits,  one  of  which,  after 
she  is  dead,  stays  in  this  tablet,  another  abides  in 
6 


82          Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

the  tomb  with  the  body,  while  the  third  goes  to 
Hades  and  awaits  the  time  of  rebirth),  and  before 
which  her  relatives  will  prostrate  themselves;  offer 
sacrifices  of  food;  burn  paper  money,  candles,  and 
incense;  cause  the  theatrical  plays  to  be  rendered 

for  the  benefit  and  entertainment  of  her  soul  that 

£• 

dwells  therein.  She  is  willing  to  be  considered  in- 
ferior to  her  father,  husband,  or  son — yea,  willing 
to  be  treated  as  their  slave — if  she  can  thereby  merit 
the  reverence  and  worship  of  her  kindred  after  she 
has  "shuffled  off  this  mortal  coil."  Though  she  may 
be  despised  on  this  side  of  death,  yet  she  hopes  to 
become  a  worshipful  object  on  the  other  side.  Con- 
fucianism holds  out  this  crumb  of  comfort  to  the 
downtrodden  female  of  the  "Inner  Land,"  and  she 
seemingly  rolls  it  under  her  tongue  as  a  sweet  mor- 
sel. The  home  of  her  soul  will  be  a  wooden  tablet, 
and  her  devotees  will  be  her  lineal  descendants. 
Confucianism,  on  account  of  its  doctrines  of  filial 
piety  which  culminated  in  ancestral  worship,  has  a 
tremendous  grip  upon  all  classes  of  people  in  China. 
This  filial  piety  is  based  not  so  much  on  love  as  fear. 
If  a  child  neglects  to  care  for  a  parent  while  living, 
or  fails  to  worship  before  the  tablet  that  contains 
the  soul  of  his  dead  ancestor,  the  spirit  of  the  angry 
parent  will  be  sure  to  haunt  his  footsteps,  and  dis- 


Religious  Condition.  83 

asters  of  every  description  will  come  upon  the  un- 
filial  child.  Hope  of  being  protected  by  them  is  also 
an  element  in  the  acts  of  religious  homage  to  an- 
cestors. The  spirit  is  not  expected  to  feed  upon  the 
material  elements  of  the  food  offered,  but  simply  to 
appropriate  the  odors  or  exhalations  or  vapors  aris- 
ing therefrom,  the  grosser  elements  being  eaten  by 
the  party  making  the  offering;  the  dead  and  the 
living  are  thus  supposed  to  feast  together. 

Tauism  offers  to  the  daughters  of  China  fewer 
real  attractions,  and  possibly  more  degradation,  than 
does  Confucianism,  yet  the  women  are  more  de- 
voted Tauists  than  are  the  men. 

The  teaching  of  Confucius  was  mostly  ethical 
and  political.  Beyond  ancestral  worship  he  said  but 
little  about  religion.  His  disciples  said  he  did  not 
discourse  on  the  gods.  When  asked  about  death 
he  answered,  "Imperfectly  acquainted  with  life,  how 
can  I  know  of  death?"  The  hearts  of  the  people 
were  not  satisfied  with  moral  and  political  instruc- 
tion ;  they  longed,  yea,  thirsted  after  immortality, 
and  wished  to  know  something  about  the  life  beyond. 
The  immortality  so  dimly  hinted  at  in  ancestral  wor- 
ship was  also  recognized  in  Tauism,  if  not  borrowed 
from  it.  Bishop  Wiley  says,  "Confucius  borrowed 
his  best  ideas  of  immortality  from  Lao-tsze."  The 


84  Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

founder  of  Tauism  also  presented  clearer  ideas  of 
God.  He  said:  "Before  the  existence  of  chaos, 
which  preceded  the  origin  of  the  heavens  and  the 
earth,  there  existed  a  solitary  Being,  immense  and 
silent,  immutable  and  always  acting  without  chang- 
ing in  himself.  This  Being  we  shall  regard  as  the 
Parent  of  the  universe.  I  am  ignorant  of  his  name, 
but  I  designate  him  by  the  word  Reason."  Confu- 
cianism failing  to  provide  for  the  spiritual  longings 
of  man's  nature  was  supplemented  by  the  speculative 
accounts  of  God  and  the  universe  as  found  in  the 
rationalistic  writings  of  Lao-tsze.  But  alas !  Tauism 
is  not  what  its  speculative  founder  intended  it  to  be. 
He  did  not  claim  to  be  more  than  a  man,  but  his  fol- 
lowers worship  him  as  a  god.  Tauism,  starting 
with  a  faint  idea  of  the  true  God  (borrowed  doubt- 
less from  the  primeval  religion  handed  down  across 
the  flood  by  Noah),  has  degenerated  until  the  Tau- 
istic  pantheon  contains  images  representing  nearly 
everything  "in  the  heavens  above,  and  in. the  earth 
beneath,  and  in  the  waters  under  the  earth."  A 
grosser  form  of  idolatry  can  scarcley  be  thought  of. 
It  is  true  that  the  Chinese  have  not  gone  as  far 
as  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  and  deified  lust,  but  lust- 
ful forms  of  worship  are  common.  So  obscene  are 
some  of  the  forms  of  worship  performed  by  mothers, 


Religious  Condition.  85 

who  are  anxious  to  have  sons,  that  it  would  be  im- 
proper for  these  rites  to  be  described  in  a  paper  pre- 
pared for  the  eye  of  the  public. 

Possibly  the  one  thing  that  attracts  women  to 
the  Tauist  shrines  is  a  certain  form  of  the  doctrine 
of  soul-sleeping.  One  of  her  souls  is  to  sleep  with 
the  body  in  the  tomb,  and  unless  the  body  is  buried 
in  a  spot  whose  fung-shui,  or  luck,  is  good,  the  soul 
can  not  rest  in  peace.  It  is  the  business  of  the  Tau- 
ist priests  to  find  a  lucky  burial-place,  offer  sacri- 
fices, and  chant  weird  ritualistic  ceremonies  for  the 
rest  of  her  soul.  Buddhist  priests  are  sometimes 
luck  doctors;  but  "the  rudiments  of  this  magic  art 
are  to  be  found  in  ancient  China,"  and  hence  this 
science  of  luck  does  not  properly  belong  to  Bud- 
dhism, which  is  exotic.  Although  the  belief  that  the 
repose  of  their  soul  depends  on  their  acceptance  of 
Tauism,  yet  there  are  other  superstitious  attractions 
for  women  in  this  system.  In  domestic  life  the 
Chinese  housewife  wishes  the  special  help  of  the 
kitchen  god ;  when  she  desires  a  son,  she  wants  the 
favor  of  the  goddess  that  determines  the  sex  in  chil- 
dren; when  she  is  about  to  become  a  mother,  she 
courts  the  care  of  the  goddess  of  midwifery;  while 
she  has  a  family  growing  up,  she  clamors  for  the 
watch-care  of  the  goddess  whose  duty  is  to  care  for 


86  /omen  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

children ;  when  a  child  is  about  to  be  married,  a 
Tauist  priest  must  be  employed  to  perform  certain 
religious  rites;  and  when  death  enters  the  family, 
the  services  of  the  priest  are  indispensable.  Thus 
Tauism  touches  the  life  of  the  Chinese  female  in  a 
thousand  different  ways,  and,  like  the  devif-fish, 
holds  her  in  its  strong  embrace  until  her  life  is 
sapped  away. 

The  third  religion  of  China,  Buddhism,  also  finds 
the  larger  numbers  of  its  votaries  among  the  gentler 
sex.  This  finds  its  explanation  in  the  doctrine  of 
the  transmigration  of  souls.  Woman,  that  has  come 
up  through  successive  births  from  a  shellfish  or  ser- 
pent or  some  other  lower  order  of  existence,  hopes 
by  one  more  birth  to  become  a  man,  and  thus  cease 
to  be  an  inferior  creature — a  slave.  Dr.  Nevius 
says:  "The  worshipers  in  Buddhist  temples  are  for 
the  most  part  women,  and  they  are  advanced  in  age. 
The  young  women  are  confined  to  their  houses  by 
the  multiplicity  of  their  domestic  duties  and  the  cus- 
toms of  the  country  which  forbid  them  appearing 
in  public.  The  older  women  having  comparatively 
little  to  do,  and,  reminded  by  their  age  of  the  neces- 
sity of  preparing  for  the  future  state,  spend  much 
of  their  time  in  the  temples.  In  accordance  with  the 
doctrine  of  the  transmigration  of  souls  so  prominent 


Ax  IMAGE  OF  BUDDHA  AND  A  PRIEST  AT  HIS  DEVOTIONS. 


Religious  Condition.  87 

in  the  Buddhist  system,  the  great  end  in  the  worship 
of  Buddha  is  to  secure  a  more  favorable  position  in 
the  future  state,  in  which  it  is  supposed  individuals 
will  ascend  and  descend  in  the  scale  of  existence  ac- 
cording to  the  preponderance  of  their  merits  or  de- 
merits in  this  life.  In  consequence  of  the  inferior 
station  of  women  in  China  and  their  peculiar  trials, 
being  a  woman  is  regarded  as  a  great  misfortune, 
and,  in  the  bitterness  incident  to  their  present  life, 
they  console  themselves  with  the  hope  that  their 
earnest  devotion  at  the  shrine  of  Buddha  will  gain 
for  them  the  position  of  a  man  in  the  future  state. 
They  suppose  that  the  neglect  of  worship  would  re- 
sult in  being  born  again  in  one  of  the  lower  orders 
of  animals."  Thus  their  devotion  is  based  upon  the 
hope  of  being  a  man  and  the  fear  of  becoming  an 
animal  in  the  future  world. 

One  of  the  saddest  sights  to  be  seen  in  Buddhist 
countries  is  a  sad-faced  mother  going  about,  looking 
into  the  eyes  of  a  cat,  dog,  or  pig,  to  see  if  she  can 
discover  the  image  of  her  dead  child ;  for  she  fears 
it  may  have  been  reborn  a  beast.  And  yet  there 
are  some  American  mothers  that  pride  themselves 
in  being  Buddhists,  or  Theosophists  (possibly  a 
more  pleasing  term).  Theosophy  is  nothing  more 
nor  less  than  sugar-coated  Buddhism.  The  Bud- 


88          Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

dhists  of  India  and  Japan  claim  that  the  Theos- 
ophists  of  America  are  Buddhists.  Possibly  the 
secret  of  the  apparent  devotion  of  Madam  Blavatsky 
and  Mrs.  Besant  might  be  found  in  an  abnormal 
desire  to  become  dashing  colonels  after  their  next 
birth.  Possibly  the  Madam  is  to-day  a  precocious 
youth  in  some  East  India  sahib's  family.  Even 
Buddhism  has  degenerated  until  it  has  become 
beastly  and  sensual.  Beside  the  image  of  Buddha 
in  the  temples  may  be  found  a  monkey  idol.  The 
monkey  is  worshiped  in  all  Buddhist  countries.  The 
monkey  is  believed  to  have  special  charge  of  ghosts, 
witches,  and  elves;  hence  the  females  worship  him 
that  he  may  protect  them  from  the  evil  influences  of 
these  dreaded  beings.  The  tiger  is  worshiped  be- 
cause he  "is  supposed  to  have  the  power  of  absorb- 
ing or  counteracting  the  pernicious  influences  which 
cause  children  to  become  sick." 

Animal  worship  is  not  confined  to  Buddhism, 
for  the  Tauists  have  also  deified  beasts.  So  mingled 
are  the  lower  forms  of  these  two  religions  that  it  is 
almost  impossible  to  distinguish  between  them. 
Some  of  the  finest  temples  I  have  ever  seen  have 
been  dedicated  to  animals;  such  as  the  fox,  horse, 
dog,  rabbit,  lizard,  or  dragon.  The  most  popular 
object  of  worship  in  China,  not  excepting  Buddha, 


Religious  Condition.  89 

is  the  Goddess  of  Mercy.  She  is  a  deified  Buddhist 
nun.  She  is  supposed  to  have  special  power  in  de- 
termining the  sex  of  unborn  children,  hence  is  espe- 
cially worshiped  by  all  that  desire  male  offspring. 
Since  all  Chinese  desire  male  children,  and  do  not 
wish  to  be  afflicted  with  girls,  the  popularity  of  this 
goddess  is  easily  explained.  She  is  represented  with 
a  child  in  her  arms.  She  is  sometimes  represented 
with  many  hands,  by  which  she  is  enabled  to  pour 
blessings  on  many  people.  She  is  frequently  called 
the  "thousand-handed  Goddess  of  Mercy."  There 
is  a  strong  resemblance  between  the  Goddess  of 
Mercy  as  worshiped  by  Buddhists  and  the  Virgin 
Mary  as  worshiped  by  Roman  Catholics.  This  is 
recognized  by  the  Chinese.  Once,  when  visiting  a 
Buddhist  temple  with  other  missionaries,  the  head 
priest  came  out  to  greet  us.  He  supposed  that  we 
were  Roman  Catholics;  hence  when  we  entered  the 
temple  he  took  us  to  the  idol  of  the  Goddess  of 
Mercy,  and  said  she  was  "All  the  same  as  the  Virgin 
Mary."  There  is  a  strong  resemblance  between 
Buddhism  and  Romanism  in  many  of  their  outer 
manifestations.  This  is  admitted  by  Romanists 
themselves.  They  try  to  explain  these  similarities 
by  saying  the  devil  counterfeited  the  true  religion 
when  he  manufactured  Buddhism.  But  the  weak- 


90          Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

ness  in  this  explanation  is  that  all  these  features 
were  in  Buddhism  many  years  before  there  was  a 
pope  at  Rome. 

Doctor  Nevius  says,  in  pointing  out  these  similar- 
ities, that  they  "both  have  a  supreme  and  infallible 
head ;  the-  celibacy  of  the  priesthood ;  monasteries 
and  nunneries;  prayers  in  an  unknown  tongue; 
prayers  to  saints  and  intercessors,  and  especially  and 
principally  to  a  Virgin  with  a  child ;  also  prayers  for 
the  dead;  repetition  of  prayers,  with  the  use  of  the 
rosary ;  works  of  merit  and  supererogation ;  self-im- 
posed austerities  and  bodily  inflictions;  a  formal 
daily  service,  consisting  of  chants,  burning  of  can- 
dles, sprinkling  of  holy  waters,  bowings,  prostra- 
tions, marching  and  countermarching.  Both  have 
also  fast-days  and  feast-days ;  religious  processions ; 
images  and  pictures,  and  fabulous  legends;  and  re- 
vere and  worship  relics,  real  and  pretended." 

Possibly,  when  Romanism  first  came  in  contact 
with  Buddhism  in  Western  and  Central  Asia,  Ca- 
tholicism took  on  these  popular  forms  of  Buddhism, 
which  finally  drove  out  the  true  spirit  of  Chris- 
tianity, and  the  simpler  forms  of  primitive  worship 
were  displaced  by  almost  endless  rites  and  cere- 
monies. 

Buddhist  and  Tauist  nuns  are  as  common  in 


Religious  Condition.  91 

China  as  Roman  nuns  in  America,  and  possibly  they 
are  just  as  virtuous,  self-sacrificing,  and  useful.  Dr. 
Gray  gives  the  following  account  of  the  self-imposed 
mortification  of  a  Tauist  nun :  "I  saw  a  devotee  who 
had  caused  herself  to  be  inclosed  in  a  brick  tower, 
having  resolved  to  remain  in  this  solitary  confine- 
ment until  she  had  obtained  funds  sufficient  to  enable 
her  to  rebuild  the  temple  in  the  courtyard  of  which 
her  temporary  prison  stood.  The  tower  was  pro- 
vided with  a  small  aperture,  through  which  she  re- 
ceived her  food  and  could  see  all  persons  passing 
that  way.  As  they  approached  she  was  able  to 
command  their  attention  by  means  of  a  long  rope 
attached  to  the  clapper  of  a  bell  which  was  hung  in 
the  center  of  the  gateway."  The  same  authority 
makes  the  following  statement  about  Buddhist  nuns : 
"Aspirants  are  received  into  the  nunneries  at  the 
early  age  of  ten,  and  their  novitiate  continues  until 
they  have  attained  their  sixteenth  year.  At  this 
period  the  female  mind  is  considered  as  mature,  and 
they  are  called  upon  to  take  the  veil.  The  ceremony 
consists  in  the  candidate  making  a  declaration  in  the 
presence  of  the  idol  of  Koan-Yan,  the  Goddess  of 
Mercy,  that  she  will  maintain  a  state  of  perpetual 
virginity ;  that  she  will  eat  neither  fish,  nor  flesh,  nor 
fowl ;  that  she  will  drink  no  wine ;  and  that  she  will 


92          Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

endeavor  to  carry  out  in  her  daily  life  the  tenets 
embodied  in  the  religion  of  Buddha."  All  the  Bud- 
dhist nuns  do  not  live  up  to  their  vows,  as  the  fol- 
lowing from  Doolittle's  "Social  Life  of  the  Chinese" 
will  indicate:  "As  the  [provincial]  treasurer  was 
passing  by  a  certain  nunnery  in  the  city  [Foochow] 
during  the  evening,  his  attention  was  arrested  by  the 
numerous  lights  connected  with  the  establishment, 
and  the  manifest  proof  that  it  was  improperly  visited 
by  men.  After  making  ample  inquiries  in  regard  to 
the  dissolute  life  of  the  nuns,  he  determined  to  sup- 
press the  nunneries  in  the  city,  and  oblige  the  in- 
mates to  marry  or  leave  that  section  of  the  country. 
Very  many  gladly  changed  their  state  of  single 
blessedness  for  the  state  of  matrimony,  a  sufficient 
number  of  men  being  found  to  marry  them."  This 
extermination  of  Buddhist  nunneries  occurred  over 
sixty  years  ago,  and  the  city  of  Foochow  has  been 
compartively  free  from  Buddhist  nuns  from  that  day 
to  this. 

Considering  the  corrupt  forms  of  religion  that 
have  so  long  held  womanhood  in  subjection  in  China, 
it  is  wonderful  that  the  women  of  that  trans-Pacific 
land  are  as  virtuous  as  they  are.  The  licentious 
rites  of  Buddhism  that  are  practiced  by  wives  desir- 
ing sons  are  fully  as  degrading  as  those  of  Tauism, 


o 

56 
O 

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O 


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o 
o 


Religious  Condition.  93 

and  this  undue  desire  for  male  offspring  is  born  of 
Confucianism;  hence  a  threefold  degradation  is 
brought  upon  motherhood  by  this  trinity  of  relig- 
ions. The  three  religions — one  ethical,  another 
philosophical,  and  all  in  their  present  corrupt  forms 
exceedingly  demoralizing — are  practically  one  in  the 
thoughts  and  practices  of  the  common  people.  One 
has  compared  the  three  religions  to  three  serpents: 
"The  first  serpent  swallowed  the  second  serpent  up 
to  the  head,  beyond  which  it  could  not  go.  The 
second  serpent  swallowed  the  third  to  the  same  ex- 
tent. But  the  third  serpent,  having  a  mouth  of  in- 
definite capacity,  reached  around,  and,  finding  the 
tail  of  the  first,  also  swallowed  this  serpent  up  to 
its  head,  leaving  only  three  heads  visible  and  an  ex- 
ceedingly intimate  union  between  all  three  of  the 
bodies.  Buddhism  swallowed  Tauism,  Tauism  swal- 
lowed Confucianism,  but  at  last  the  latter  swallowed 
both  Buddhism  and  Tauism  together,  and  thus  the 
three  religions  are  one." 

What  is  being  done  to  rescue  the  womanhood 
of  the  "Flowery  Land"  from  the  embrace  of  the 
three-headed  serpentine  religion,  and  from  the  de- 
grading customs  of  a  heathen  civilization  that  is 
hoary  with  age,  will  be  set  forth  in  the  chapters  that 
are  to  follow. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

WHAT  IS  BEING  DONE  FOR  THEIR 
CHRISTIANIZATION. 

THE  first  convert  in  Europe  was  a  woman;  the 
first  convert  in  the  Sandwich  Islands  was  a  woman ; 
but  the  first  convert  in  China  was  a  man.  These 
facts  are  significant.  If  Lydia  had  been  a  Chinese, 
or  the  "queen  mother"  in  Hawaii  had  been  empress 
dowager  in  the  "Middle  Kingdom,"  they  possibly 
would  have  been  preceded  into  the  kingdom  of  grace 
by  their  more  favored  brothers ;  for  the  Chinese  lady 
is  secluded  from  male  society.  Under  ordinary  cir- 
cumstances, even  the  logical  Paul  would  not  have 
been  allowed  to  present  the  "unsearchable  riches 
of  Christ"  to  the  "secluded  women  of  Cathay." 
One  of  the  serious  questions  that  confronted  the 
early  Christian  workers  in  the  land  of  Confucius 
was  how  to  reach  the  women  of  China.  Custom  for- 
bade women  to  appear  in  a  promiscuous  congrega- 
tion. If  they  gathered  in  congregations  by  them- 
selves, no  minister,  foreign  or  native,  would  be*  al- 
lowed to  address  them.  Sometimes  a  small  group 

94 


What  is  Being  Done.  95 

of  females  would  draw  near  enough  to  get  a  few 
crumbs  of  the  bread  of  life  that  was  being  broken 
to  their  fathers  and  brothers,  and  then  they  would 
hasten  away  for  fear  some  wicked  person  would  hurl 
vile  epithets  at  them.  This  obstacle  was  partly  over- 
come by  putting  partitions  through  the  middle  of 
the  churches  to  within  a  few  feet  of  the  pulpit.  The 
sexes  were  thus  shut  off  from  each  other's  gaze, 
but  all  could  hear  and  see  the  speaker.  (No  co- 
quetting is  allowed  in  a  Chinese  congregation.) 
After  the  churches  had  been  arranged  so  that  the 
women  could  sit  in  seclusion  and  listen  to  the  mes- 
sage of  salvation,  a  few  of  the  more  elderly  came  to 
the  services ;  but  the  women,  as  a  rule,  did  not  come. 
The  bound  feet  of  the  women  made  it  so  difficult 
for  them  to  get  about  that,  unless  the  church  was 
near,  they  did  not  attend.  To  hire  chair-bearers 
every  time  they  wished  to  attend  services  was  too 
expensive ;  to  walk  was  too  painful ;  and  these  being 
their  only  means  of  locomotion,  many  were  kept 
away  from  the  sanctuary. 

The  missionaries  and  native  pastors,  when  visit- 
ing among  the  families,  were  not  even  allowed  to 
ask  after  the  health  of  the  female  members  of  the 
household.  Pastoral  work  among  the  wives  and 
daughters  was  thus  wholly  interrupted.  Custom 


96          Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

shut  out  the  missionary  doctor  from  the  gentler 
sex.  He  would  not  be  allowed  within  the  inner 
apartments  except  in  very  rare  cases.  Many  a  wife, 
mother,  or  daughter  suffered  and  died  who  might 
have  been  helped  by  foreign  skill.  Not  only  did  the 
seclusion  and  foot-binding  customs  shut  in  the 
woman  and  shut  out  the  Christian  pastor  and  doc- 
tor, but  the  females,  being  reared  in  ignorance, 
could  not  have  read  a  Bible  or  tract  if  it  had  been 
put  in  their  hands.  Thus  the  doors  that  had  been 
shut  by  custom  were  locked  by  ignorance. 

The  missionaries  knew  full  well  that  China  would 
never  be  Christianized  unless  the  mothers  and 
daughters  could  be  reached,  their  minds  and  hearts 
enlightened  by  the  truth  of  the  gospel,  and  their 
feet  set  free  to  run  on  errands  of  mercy.  The  wives 
of  the  missionaries,  it  is  true,  could  gain  access  to 
the  female  apartments  of  the  Chinese  homes;  but 
they  were  burdened  by  the  domestic  ties  and  duties, 
and  could  not  give  the  attention  to  the  work  that 
was  necessary. 

The  women  of  the  Occident  grasped  the  magni- 
tude of  the  question,  and  set  themselves  to  solve  it. 
Educated  young  women  were  sent  to  China  to  open 
up  schools,  hospitals,  foundling  homes,  and  to  ad- 
minister the  healing  art  to  the  bodies,  and  "leaves 


What  is  Being  Done.  97 

from  the  tree  of  life"  to  the  souls  of  their  perishing 
sisters  of  the  Orient.  So  successful  have  the  lady 
missionaries  been  in  this  noble  work  that  many 
hundreds  of  girls  and  women  have  been  educated, 
multitudes  of  the  gentler  sex  crowd  the  churches, 
and  thousands  have  professed  to  have  obtained  the 
knowledge  of  their  sins  forgiven. 

How  have  the  lady  missionaries  brought  about 
these  grand  results?  Possibly  the  first  lady  mis- 
sionaries sent  to  China  for  exclusive  work  among 
the  girls  and  women  arrived  in  that  far-away  land 
in  1858;  they  were  two  sisters.  The  first  year  was 
spent  in  acquiring  a  knowledge  of  the  language. 
Their  active  work  was  commenced  in  1859  by  open- 
ing a  boarding-school  for  girls.  The  enrollment  the 
first  year  amounted  to  one  girl,  who  was  permitted 
to  attend  by  "allowing  other  members  of  her  family 
to  come  and  remain  with  her  to  watch  over  her  and 
guard  against  her  having  her  eyes  gouged  out,  or 
being  spirited  away  bodily,  while  she  slept,  by  the 
foreign  devils."  The  next  year  eight  girls  attended 
the  school.  Two  were  from  heathen  families.  "Dur- 
ing the  year  one  of  them  was  stolen  by  her  mother, 
who  wished  to  bind  her  feet,  despite  the  entreaties  of 
the  young  ladies,  and  another  was  taken  home  on 
pretense  of  making  a  visit.  Her  parents,  after  mak- 
7 


98          Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

ing  numberless  excuses  to  lengthen  her  stay  at  home, 
said  she  could  not  return  because  she  was  being  in- 
terested in  Christianity,  and  they  feared  it  would 
result  in  her  refusing  the  one  to  whom  they  had  be- 
trothed her  in  her  infancy."  The  third  year  found 
fifteen  girls  in  the  school,  who  were  reported  to  have 
been  "diligent,  obedient,  and  truthful."  Girls  are 
admitted  to  these  schools  with  the  understanding  that 
they  take  the  six  years'  course  of  study.  A  grand- 
father objected  to  one  of  his  granddaughters  enter- 
ing the  Christian  boarding-school  because  she  ought 
to  marry  according  to  Chinese  custom  and  present 
him  with  great-grandsons  long  before  her  years  of 
schooling  were  over.  In  the  face  of  all  obstacles, 
the  system  of  boarding-schools  for  girls  has  de- 
veloped until  hundreds  of  these  Christian  centers  of 
life  have  been  opened  in  the  darkness  of  far  Cathay. 
With  very  few  exceptions,  the  girls  educated  in 
these  schools  become  Christians.  When  they  re- 
turn to  their  homes  they  become  witnesses  for  Christ. 
While  their  mothers  and  sisters  gather  about  them, 
they  read  the  story  of  Jesus,  and  explain  his  wonder- 
ful promises.  Even  their  fathers  and  brothers  listen. 
The  truth  thus  finds  entrance  to  the  home's,  minds, 
and  hearts  that  had  long  been  closed  against  it. 
Missionaries  and  native  pastors  frequently  find  whole 


What  is  Being  Done.  99 

families  ready  for  baptism  that  had  been  led  to  Christ 
by  these  educated  Christian  girls. 

Many  of  these  young  ladies,  when  they  have 
finished  their  education,  open  up  day-schools  in  their 
native  villages,  in  which  they  teach  the  rudimentary 
principles  of  an  education,  and  instruct  the  girls  of 
the  community  in  the  truths  of  the  gospel.  In  this 
way  one  Chinese  Christian  schoolteacher  reaches  and 
molds  scores  of  her  own  sex  for  Christ  and  right- 
eousness. These  day-schools  are  being  opened  in 
thousands  of  centers  of  population.  Gradually  are 
the  chains  being  broken  that  have  long  bound 
womanhood  in  seclusion,  and  the  captive  daughters 
of  the  "Land  of  Sinim"  are  learning  to  know  and 
enjoy  the  freedom  of  God's  children.  The  native 
pastors  find  their  helpmates  from  among  these 
boarding-school  girls.  Some  of  them  are  good  public 
speakers,  and  while  their  husbands  are  busy  sowing 
the  seed  in  distant  neighborhoods,  they,  like  Susan- 
nah Wesley,  gather  the  local  flock  together,  and 
break  unto  the  hungry  souls  the  bread  of  life. 

Another  fruit  of  these  schools  is  a  system  of 
schools  for  married  women.  When  the  wives  and 
mothers  have  once  tasted  of  the  riches  of  God's 
Word  they  wish  to  learn  to  read  the  precious  truth 
for  themselves.  Schools  have  been  established  in 


ioo        Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

which  they  are  taught  to  read  the  colloquial  language. 
Some  of  these  women  will  learn  to  read  quite  readily 
in  six  or  eight  months.  The  Bible  is  their  principal 
text-book.  The  teaching  in  these  schools  is  mostly 
done  by  native  women  who  have  been  educated  in 
the  girls'  boarding-schools,  and  who  have  also  taken 
a  special  course  of  instruction  in  Bible  study.  The 
lady  missionaries  not  only  prepare  these  teachers  for 
their  work,  but  also  carefully  superintend  the  wo- 
men's schools.  It  is  a  touching  sight  to  see  these 
women  poring  over  their  books.  Some  of  them 
have  babies  strapped  to  their  backs  (the  customary 
way  of  carrying  a  small  child  in  China)  as  they  try 
to  master  their  lessons.  The  language  being  tonal, 
every  word  has  to  be  uttered  loudly  and  distinctly. 
When  twenty  or  thirty  women  are  reading  at  the 
top  of  their  voices,  and  half  a  dozen  children  are 
mingling  their  plaintive  cries  or  merry  laughter  with 
the  shrill  notes  of  the  mothers,  it  forms  a  musical 
exhibition  not  soon  to  be  forgotten.  From  these 
noisy  schools  have  come  some  excellent  Bible  stu- 
dents, who  go  forth  to  read  the  Holy  Word  in  the 
homes  of  their  less-favored  sisters. 

Missionaries  select  from  among  the  pupils  of  the 
girls'  schools  and  women's  schools  the  best  students, 
especially  those  that  show  an  aptness  for  Scripture 


What  is  Being  Done.  101 

teaching,  and,  after  giving  them  thorough  intruc- 
tion,  assign  them  to  the  special  work  of  Bible-read- 
ers or  deaconesses.  These  women  are  admitted  to 
the  female  apartments  of  the  Chinese  homes,  where 
no  pastor,  native  or  foreign,  is  allowed  to  enter. 
The  Churches  are  reaping  an  abundant  harvest  as 
the  fruit  of  the  seed-sowing  done  by  these  native 
deaconesses. 

One  day  one  of  these  Bible-readers  came  to  a 
missionary  and  told  him  that  there  were  twenty-five 
or  thirty  persons  in  a  certain  village  that  had  been 
converted  and  desired  to  be  baptized.  The  mission- 
ary was  surprised,  and  asked  the  deaconess  who 
had  led  these  people  to  Christ?  She  said  she  had 
been  going  there  in  her  evangelistic  work ;  even  the 
men  had  listened  as  she  read  and  explained  the 
Word.  A  goodly  number  of  both  sexes  had  been 
converted,  and  desired  baptism.  The  missionary 
went  to  the  village,  called  the  converts  together, 
and  questioned  them  carefully  concerning  their 
knowledge  of  the  Bible,  and  was  astonished  at  their 
fund  of  Scripture  truth.  Then  he  requested  them 
all  to  tell  their  Christian  experience.  He  said 
that  some  of  the  clearest  statements  of  religious  ex- 
perience he  had  ever  heard  from  new  converts  came 
from  the  lips  of  those  men  and  women  brought  to 


IO2        Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

Christ  by  the  native  deaconess.  Among  them  was 
a  woman  of  remarkable  history.  She  had  been 
known  from  the  time  she  was  seventeen  years  old 
to  the  day  she  was  converted  (when  she  was  nearly 
seventy  years  of  age)  as  the  head  devil  of  all  that 
region.  She  was  a  demoniac.  Demoniacal  posses- 
sion is  common  in  China.  This  is  admitted  by 
medical  missionaries  and  European  and  American 
doctors  that  are  practicing  in  China.  Demoniacs 
have  quiet  moods;  the  Bible-reader  would  take  ad- 
vantage of  these  quiet  spells,  and  read  and  talk  to 
the  demoniac  about  Jesus  and  how  he  cast  out 
demons  when  he  was  on  earth.  This  she  continued 
to  do  from  time  to  time  until  enough  truth  was 
stored  in  the  poor  woman's  mind  to  form  a  basis 
for  saving  faith,  and  she  was  gloriously  saved,  and 
the  devil  cast  out.  This  liberated  daughter  of  Eve 
became  an  efficient  worker  for  Christ.  The  fore- 
going shows  how  a  strong  Christian  society  sprang 
up  as  the  fruit  of  the  seed  sowed  by  a  native  Bible- 
reader  who  was  educated  in  a  woman's  mission 
school. 

These  schools  are  stirring  up  the  heathen  people, 
who  refuse  to  send  their  daughters  to  Christian 
schools,  to  do  something  for  the  education  of  their 
girls.  They  say  that  if  the  Christian  Chinese  ed- 


H 

a  ' 

M 


W  >  25 

K  *  H 

H  <  ui 

X  »  M 

M  ^  2 


r  2 

w  o 
o  r 

>* 


O    2 

Si 


What  is  Being  Done.  103 

ucate  both  their  boys  and  girls,  then  the  on-coming 
generations  of  Christian  people  will  be  smarter  than 
the  heathens,  and  will  dominate  things ;  hence  many 
of  the  higher  classes  of  heathen  people  are  com- 
mencing to  educate  their  daughters. 

Others  are  beginning  to  see  the  benefit  of  the 
Western  education  for  their  girls,  and  are  opening 
up  schools  where  they  can  get  even  a  higher  educa- 
tion. The  following,  taken  from  a  missionary  letter 
sent  from  China,  will  indicate  the  plans  that  are 
being  matured  by  the  Chinese  for  the  education  of 
their  daughters :  "It  has  been  proposed  and  planned 
by  some  of  the  leading  officials  of  China  to  found  a 
school  at  Shanghai  for  Chinese  girls  and  women, 
which  is  to  grow  into  a  university  for  training 
teachers  for  girls'  schools  all  over  China.  The 
founders  propose  to  guarantee  liberty  of  conscience 
and  opportunity  for  religious  teaching  and  Sabbath 
observance.  They  plan  to  deal  directly  with  foot- 
binding,  concubinage,  and  girl  slavery."  Leading 
lady  missionaries,  and  some  thoroughly  educated 
Chinese  Christian  young  women,  have  been  invited 
to  accept  positions  as  instructors  in  this  school. 
Verily  China  does  move! 

The  girls'  day-schools  being  established  in  differ- 
ent cities  and  villages,  and  the  corps  of  native  Bible- 


104        Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

readers  becoming  large,  and  these  workers  being 
scattered  over  extensive  districts,  made  it  necessary 
that  certain  lady  missionaries  should  be  appointed 
to  superintend  these  important  lines  of  work,  and 
also  give  special  attention  to  evangelistic  work 
among  the  women.  The  superintending  of  the 
girls'  day-school  and  deaconess  work  being  done 
by  the  lady  missionary  evangelists  has  come  to  be 
classified  as  "evangelistic  work."  These  evangelists 
make  tours  over  large  districts,  examining  the  day- 
school  scholars,  giving  special  instruction  and  coun- 
sel to  the  teachers  and  Bible-readers,  and,  together 
with  the  latter,  visiting  and  holding  religious  services 
with  women  and  girls  that  are  hid  away  from  the 
faces  of  men.  These  workers  meet  many  obstacles. 
One  lady  evangelist  says:  "Now  and  then  we  come 
to  a  home  where  we  are  very  warmly  received,  not 
only  as  visitors  but  as  messengers.  .  .  .  The  women 
are  so  eager  to  be  taught  that  it  is  difficult  to  get 
away  from  them.  Being  new  in  the  work,  I  was 
delighted  at  their  eagerness  to  hear  and  equally 
surprised  to  find  the  doors  shut  against  us  on  our 
next  visit.  Personally  I  believe  some  of  these 
women  were  in  earnest,  but  I  think  that  they  showed 
their  interest  too  plainly,  and  so  were  not  allowed 
to  see  us  again.  In  one  house  a  woman  was  able 


What  is  Being  Done.  105 

to  conceal  her  interest  until  she  had  been  taught 
again  and  again,  and  had  gotten  quite  a  hold  of  the 
gospel,  and  then  her  husband  found  it  out  and  beat 
her,  and  kept  the  door  always  shut  against  us." 

This  same  lady  gives  us  another  bit  of  her  ex- 
perience that  shows  how  this  evangelistic  work  is 
done:  "A  woman  invited  me  into  her  cottage,  and 
added  as  I  followed,  'I  care  very  much  to  listen.' 
She  listened  a  long  time,  asking  questions  where 
my  meaning  was  not  clear.  She  said,  'If  all  you  say 
is  true,  my  kitchen  god  is  useless;  nothing  but  a 
piece  of  colored  paper;  I  might  as  well  destroy  it.' 
I  quite  agreed  and  suggested  that  there  was  no  time 
like  the  present,  so  she  brought  and  dstroyed  it  in 
my  presence.  I  thanked  God  and  took  courage. 
Since  then  she  has  sent  me  her  Kwoen-diah  (spirit 
money  for  merit  making)  which  she  supposed  to  be 
worth  $1,000  each,  saying  they  were  worthless  and  I 
could  have  them."  The  following  will  illustrate  how 
the  native  workers  are  regularly  drilled  for  their 
work.  "There  is  one  part  of  my  duty  I  have  not 
mentioned,  and  that  is,  daily  instructing  the  Bible- 
women.  With  those  who  have  been  employed  for 
years,  and  are  diligent,  careful  Bible-readers,  this 
is  not  necessary.  .  .  .  We  devote  the  greater 
part  of  each  morning  to  reading  the  Bible  together, 


io6        Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

and  trying  to  get  clear  and  intelligent  notions  of 
its  teachings.  To  me  this  is  a  very  pleasant  em- 
ployment, and  I  trust  will  be  useful  to  them." 

Possibly  no  Christian  work  is  more  fruitful  of 
good  than  that  which  is  being  done  by  these  lady 
evangelists  and  their  native  helpers. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

WHAT  IS  BEING  DONE  FOR  THEIR 
CHRISTIANIZATION  ?— Continued. 

FOUNDLING  Homes  have  been  established  by 
the  missionary  women  of  nearly  all  the  Christian  de- 
nominations working  in  "Inner  Land."  The  Ro- 
man Catholics  were  first  to  commence  this  benevolent 
movement  that  has  for  its  object  the  rescuing  of  baby 
girls  from  the  sudden  and  cruel  death  to  which  their 
own  parents  have  assigned  them.  For  some  unac- 
countable reason  this  charitable  work  of  the  Roman 
Catholics  was  greatly  misunderstood  by  the  Chinese. 
The  slanderous  report  went  abroad  that  the  waifs 
were  cruelly  treated ;  that  the  foreigners  scooped  out 
their  eyes  and  used  them  to  manufacture  medicine. 
It  was  commonly  reported  that  the  foundlings  were 
not  only  treated  in  that  way,  but  that  the  Roman 
Catholics  spirited  away  children  from  villages  and 
cities  to  supply  their  foreign  medicine  factories.  If 
a  child  were  lost  or  carried  off  by  wolves,  suspicion 
immediately  rested  upon  the  kind-hearted  Roman 
missionaries,  and  frequently  a  riot  followed.  The 
107 


io8        Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

Roman  orphanages,  as  well  as  the  other  Roman 
Catholic  missionary  buildings,  are  usually  inclosed 
in  walled  compounds.  The  somber  walls  cast  a 
mysterious  aspect  over  the  Foundling  Homes.  The 
people,  being  shut  out,  and  not  knowing  what  is 
going  on  within  the  inclosure,  surmise  that  the 
rumors  are  true.  These  surmisings  breed  hatred, 
and  frequently  this  hatred  is  not  satisfied  until  the 
Foundling  Homes  are  reduced  to  ashes. 

When  the  Protestants  commenced  work  in  China 
they  found  that  the  orphan-rescue  work  was  in  such 
ill  repute  among  the  Chinese  that  they  were  loath  to 
take  it  up.  At  first  the  waifs  were  rescued  and 
placed  in  the  families  of  Chinese,  who  were  willing 
to  care  for  them  if  they  were  paid  for  so  doing. 
This  plan  proved  to  be  too  great  a  financial  burden ; 
consequently,  Foundling  Homes  were  quietly 
opened,  and  the  rescue  work  became  a  part  of  the 
regular  program  of  the  woman's  missionary  move- 
ment. A  representative  of  this  noble  line  of  Chris- 
tian endeavor  says : 

"The  Foundling  Rescue  Home  is  another  work 
which  has  grown  up  and  taken  so  good  a  footing 
that  it  would  be  a  difficult  matter,  indeed,  to  dispense 
with  it  now.  It  is  a  work  that  needs  to  be  carefully 
watched  and  guarded,  lest  by  any  means  one  of  the 


o 


Q 
JO 


What  is  Being  Done.  109 

scandalous  reports,  which  those  who  hate  us  are 
so  ready  to  circulate,  should  be  started  from  some 
really  preventable  cause.  So  far  as  I  can  see,  every- 
thing is  done  that  can  be  done  to  guard  against 
suspicion.  The  babies  are  nursed  outside  by  Chinese 
foster-mothers  till  they  are  over  a  year  old,  for  which 
the  said  foster-mother  is  paid  the  usual  price  given 
by  the  natives  when  they  require  the  same  service 
for  some  treasured  baby  boy  (alas!  baby  girls  are 
not  worth  enough  for  that  in  the  eyes  of  the  heathen 
Chinese)  ;  viz.,  a  dollar  a  month.  When  the  baby 
is  over  a  year  old,  it  comes  into  the  Home.  A  for- 
eign lady  has  charge  of  the  Home.  The  house  is 
always  open  to  visitors ;  nothing  is  concealed  in  any 
way ;  we  are  and  must  always  be,  ready  to  do  any- 
thing that  tends  to  disarm  suspicion.  In  spite  of  the 
carefulness  of  the  missionaries,  evil  rumors  have 
at  different  times  been  circulated  against  foundling 
rescuers.  Once  an  evil  report  was  circulated  about 
a  certain  orphanage.  The  Christians  took  it  up  vig- 
orously, and  having  traced  it  home  to  a  young  stu- 
dent in  the  city,  compelled  him  to  make  an  apology 
and  spend  a  fixed  sum  on  the  charitable  work  of 
buying  coffins  for  poor  people  left  unburied  for  lack 
of  money."  Many  girl  babies  have  been  rescued  from 
the  hands  of  their  would-be  murderous  parents  and 


no        Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

brought  to  these  Homes,  tended,  reared,  and  edu- 
cated, and  have  become  affectionate  wives  and 
mothers  in  native  Christian  homes,  or  Bible-readers 
and  schoolteachers,  who  spend  their  whole  time  in 
Christian  work. 

Efforts  are  put  forth,  not  only  to  rescue  infant 
girls  that  have  been  cast  off  by  their  Confucian  pa- 
rents, but  the  Christian  missionaries  are  endeavoring 
to  overthrow  the  cruel  footbinding  custom  that 
makes  life  a  continuous  torture  to  the  females  that 
are  allowed  to  live.  It  is  so  difficult  for  people  who 
have  never  been  in  China  to  realize  the  magnitude 
of  this  crime  against  the  gentler  sex;  or  with  what 
tenacity  the  people,  and  even  the  women  themselves, 
cling  to  the  custom. 

When  the  Manchu-Tartars  conquered  China  in 
1644  they  tried  to  break  up  the  footbinding  custom, 
but  failed.  They  could  impose  the  cue  (which  was 
wholly  a  Tartar  custom)  upon  the  Chinese  men  as 
a  badge  of  loyalty  to  the  Manchu  dynasty ;  but  they 
could  not  stop  the  bandaging  of  feet  among  the 
women.  Manchu-Tartar  ladies  have  natural  feet. 
Girls  and  women  that  enter  Christian  schools,  and 
especially  those  that  become  Christians,  are  expected 
to  unbind  their  feet.  By  most  of  the  Christian 
Churches,  unbinding  is  made  absolutely  obligatory 


What  is  Being  Done.  in 

upon  all  females  that  join  the  Church,  unless  the 
bones  of  the  feet  have  been  broken,  in  which  cases 
the  feet  can  not  be  unbound.  By  tract-literature, 
by  preaching,  by  house-to-house  instruction,  and  by 
teaching  in  the  schools,  this  custom  is  being  grad- 
ually undermined.  A  lady  missionary  gives  the  fol- 
lowing account  of  the  unbinding  of  a  little  girl's 
feet:  "Her  feet  had  been  tightly  bound  for  at  least 
four  years,  but  we  obtained  leave  to  free  them.  As 
I  was  taking  off  the  bands  of  cloth  one  evening, 
some  of  the  other  little  girls  were  near.  At  the  sight 
of  the  deformed  members,  one  exclaimed,  'This  kind 
of  feet  is  the  devil's  invention.'  Then,  looking  at 
her  own,  which  were  unbound  a  year  or  so  ago,  she 
said,  'Now  I  have  God-made  feet.'  To  which  the 
others  echoed,  'And  so  have  I,  and  so  have  I.'  Little 
Chu-Lan  was  very  patient ;  she  suffered  a  good  deal 
from  inflammation  for  a  week  or  two,  but  she  is  now 
able  to  use  her  feet  as  God  intended  she  should." 
An  evangelistic  lady  gives  her  experience  as  fol- 
lows: "At  first,  of  course,  my  words  fell  upon  hea- 
then ears,  and  had  little  effect,  if  any;  but  as  I 
gathered  a  Sabbath  class,  and  gained  the  love  of  the 
women,  I  was  soon  cheered  by  seeing  one  and  an- 
other gradually  loosening  the  bandages ;  after  a  time 
they  would  show  me  how  much  larger  the  new  pair 


ii2         Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

of  shoes  had  to  be  made,  and  some  young  wives 
with  Christian  husbands  continued  to  enlarge  until 
their  shoes  were  fully  two  inches  longer  than  when 
they  began.  With  the  old  women  we  had  to  be  con- 
tent with  loosening  the  bandages  more  gradually." 

The  study  of  the  Word  sometimes  leads  the  peo- 
ple to  unbind  their  feet,  as  the  following  incident 
related  by  a  lady  missionary  shows:  "I  was  most 
gratified  when  a  dear  woman  came  from  one  of  the 
out  stations  to  be  baptized,  bringing  some  children 
with  her.  ...  I  urged  on  her  consideration  the 
duty  of  Christians  about  unbinding,  when  she  in- 
terrupted me  by  saying,  'O,  teacher,  I  knew  what 
you  would  say;  but  see,  there  is  no  need.  See! 
our  feet  are  only  covered  with  stockings.'  Deeply 
thankful,  I  drew  from  her  the  following  story :  'My 
husband  was  reading  one  evening  at  worship  about 
the  Good  Shepherd,  and  how  kind  and  tender  the 
Lord  Jesus  was.  I  listened  well,  for  they  were 
such  sweet  words.  In  the  night  I  lay  awake,  and 
the  story  filled  my  mind,  when  suddenly  I  remem- 
bered that  next  morning  was  my  customary  time 
for  bathing  and  tightening  the  bandages  of  our 
children's  feet.  O,  I  thought,  what  grief  will  their 
cries  cause  the  loving  heart  of  Jesus!  Can  I,  too, 
cause  them  pain  and  not  sin  against  God?  I  had 


What  is  Being  Done.  113 

no  peace  then  until  I  made  up  my  mind  that  next 
day  I  would  begin  to  unbind,  and  continue  until  we 
should  need  only  stockings.  We  use  no  bandages 
now.'  In  this  family  were  three  fine  healthy  girls, 
and  one  of  twelve  who  was  adopted  for  the  son's 
wife." 

As  a  rule,  it  is  difficult  to  make  the  people  under- 
stand the  sinfulness  of  the  custom  and  get  them  to 
consent  to  unbind.  Sometimes,  when  the  women 
unbind  their  feet,  their  husbands  will  beat  them 
severely  and  compel  them  to  rebind.  Many  pa- 
rents will  take  their  daughters  out  of  school  rather 
than  have  their  feet  unbound.  Even  Christian 
mothers  sometimes  have  severe  struggles  with  their 
pride  before  they  can  consent  to  have  their  daugh- 
ters' feet  unbound.  To  have  large  feet  means,  fre- 
quently, to  be  classed  with  the  Tartars,  laboring 
women,  bondwomen,  or  courtesans.  How  humil- 
iating such  treatment  would  be!  Take  the  follow- 
ing illustration :  "A  woman  from  an  old  and  re- 
spected family,  who  bears  herself  with  the  dignity 
and  complacency  of  a  queen,  gave  herself  and  her 
family  to  God.  She  brought  her  two  daughters  a 
distance  of  four  hundred  miles  to  put  them  into 
school.  Being  fully  convinced  that  footbinding  is 
a  sin  against  the  Creator  and  his  children,  she  ex- 
8 


H4        Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

pected  to  have  her  daughters'  feet  unbound.  The 
shoes  and  stockings  were  brought  forth,  and  the 
process  of  unbinding  was  begun.  Then,  to  the  sur- 
prise of  those  who  beheld,  and  probably  to  the  sur- 
prise of  the  old  lady  herself,  a  struggle  set  up  in  the 
mother's  heart — a  struggle  between  the  force  of 
old  customs  and  prejudices  and  the  power  of  the 
new  faith.  Though  at  first  she  smiled  in  happy 
resignation,  and  said,  'God's  will  be  done;  let  the 
feet  be  unbound,'  a  moment  later  some  power 
from  the  past  caught  away  the  smile,  and  left  a 
face  twitching  with  emotion  and  furrowed  by  slow 
tears.  With  sighs  and  wringing  of  hands,  she 
walked  across  the  floor  to  return  and  beg,  'Unbind 
only  the  feet  of  one,  and  let  the  other  child's  feet 
remain  as  they  are.'  Then  reproving  herself,  she 
took  up  her  restless  walking.  Finally  she  stood  still 
and  said,  with  sober,  earnest  face,  'Go  on.  It  shall 
be  done.'  Thus  ended  one  of  the  many  contests 
brought  on  by  the  contact  of  a  heathen  practice 
with  Christian  principle." 

This  mother  knew  that  her  daughters  would  have 
to  suffer  the  jeers  and  scoffs  of  derisive  relatives 
and  neighbors;  hence  the  desperate  struggle  in  her 
breast.  Heathen  parents,  as  a  rule,  prefer  to  have 
their  daughters  suffer  untold  agony  with  their 


What  is  Being  Done.  115 

cramped-up  feet  rather  than  have  them  lose  standing 
in  society. 

A  little  girl  was  brought  to  the  mission  hospital 
to  be  treated  for  ulceration  of  the  feet,  caused  by 
footbinding.  The  case  had  gone  too  far  and  the 
little  creature  died.  "This  poor  girl's  mother  had 
bound  her  feet  at  the  age  of  six,  and  after  some  time 
the  toes  ulcerated  and  began  to  suppurate,  and  one 
or  two  fell  off.  This  was  not  heeded  at  first;  the 
child  being  encouraged  to  wish  for  very  small  feet, 
and  the  loss  of  some  of  the  toes  making  it  a  cer- 
tainity,  she  could  expect  to  secure  a  wealthy  hus- 
band and  a  life  of  ease,  eventually.  The  ulceration 
spread,  however,  and  for  years  she  had  to  bear 
torment,  until  at  last,  unable  to  stand  on  her 
feet,  she  took  to  her  bed.  The  parents,  trying  na- 
tive medicines  without  effect,  went  to  the  foreign 
doctor.  From  the  first  a  cure  was  seen  to  be  im- 
possible. Amputation  was  the  only  prospect  of 
saving  life,  and,  with  this  end  in  view,  she  was 
kept  in  the  hospital  some  weeks  and  carefully 
nourished.  Notwithstanding  every  effort  she  be- 
came gradually  weaker  (the  operation  could  not 
be  performed),  and  finally  blood-poisoning  and  de- 
lirium intervened  till  she  passed  away  in  great  ag- 
ony. In  her  delirium  she  cried:  'Mother,  mother, 


n6        Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

don't  beat  me.  I  will  be  good.  Save  life!  Bitter! 
bitter!  exceeding  bitter!  O  my  feet!  Pain,  pain, 
unceasing  pain !  Do  n't  bind  so  tight  mother.' 
With  these  piercing  words  upon  her  lips  she  passed 
away." 

A  lady  missionary  doctor  tells  of  a  sad  case: 
"One  morning  a  girl  about  twelve  years  of  age  was 
brought  to  me.  By  the  penetrating  odor  which  en- 
compassed her  it  was  very  easy  to  realize  that  there 
were  forces  in  and  around  her  somewhere,  working 
in  inverse  order.  Her  friends,  who,  judging  from 
appearances,  were  in  good  circumstances,  said  she 
was  a  native  of  Foochow,  had  had  her  feet  bound  in 
Canton,  and  they  feared  the  bandaging  had  been 
too  tight  and  that  the  feet  were  not  doing  properly ; 
at  any  rate,  not  so  well  as  they  wished.  Would 
I  be  kind  enough  to  examine  them,  and  see  if  their 
surmises  were  not  correct?  I  certainly  would,  but 
not  with  pleasure;  that  odor  and  pleasure  being  in- 
compatible. One  of  the  feet  fell  off  when  the  ban- 
dages were  unloosened.  With  the  other  it  was 
necessary  to  sever  some  of  the  ligaments.  The 
stumps  are  similar  to  those  of  a  Symes  amputation." 

The  foregoing  are  not  isolated  cases.  Many 
girls  lose  their  feet,  and  not  infrequently  their  lives, 
in  the  endeavor  to  bring  their  lower  appendages 


What  is  Being  Done.  117 

into  the  smallest  compass  possible.  The  girls  that 
unbind  have  much  to  endure.  Returning  from  the 
mission  schools  with  large  feet,  they  attract  much 
attention.  Many  things,  hard  to  bear,  are  said 
against  them,  and  even  called  after  them  in  the 
streets  of  their  native  village.  As  a  rule  they  bear 
these  insults  bravely. 

All  missionaries  and  native  pastors  take  part  in 
the  crusade  against  dwarfing  the  feet;  but  the  mis- 
sionary ladies  having  the  general  oversight  of  the 
Christian  work  among  the  women  and  girls  of  China, 
are  the  special  leaders  in  the  movement.  The  out- 
look is  most  encouraging.  Not  only  is  the  mission- 
ary army  making  a  bold,  determined  attack  upon 
the  custom,  but  many  of  the  literati,  even  some 
who  are  not  Christians,  are  taking  the  matter  up 
more  and  more,  giving  to  it  their  names,  their  time 
and  their  money.  The  anti-footbinding  workers, 
missionaries,  native  Christians  and  non-Christians, 
are  organized  into  a  society  which  has  for  its  object 
the  utter  eradication  of  this  cruel  custom. 

A  Chinese  official  at  Foochow  has  issued  a  proc- 
lamation against  footbinding,  forbidding  the  expen- 
diture of  money  on  the  custom.  Viceroy  Chang 
Chi-tung  has  written  an  introduction  to  an  anti- 
foot-binding  tract.  The  movement  is  thus  spreading 


n8        Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

among  the  literati  and  official  families  as  well  as 
among  the  more  lowly  classes.  Since  the  Chinese 
Court  has  returned  to  Peking,  the  Empress  Dow- 
ager has  cast  her  influence  in  favor  of  the  anti- 
foot-binding  crusade.  She  has  gone  so  far  as  to 
issue  an  edict  against  foot-binding.  This  work, 
that  was  taken  up  and  pushed  with  Christian  earnest- 
ness by  the  faithful  lady  missionaries,  has  grown 
in  strength  and  influence,  and  bids  fair  to  sweep 
the  torturous  custom  from  the  "Flowery  Land." 

The  medical  work  carried  on  by  the  Woman's 
Foreign  Missionary  Societies  among  the  girls  and 
women  has  developed  into  one  of  the  greatest  Chris- 
tianizing influences  in  China.  The  suffering  fe- 
males shut  in  from  the  healing  art  as  administered 
by  the  male  medical  missionaries  were  allowed  to 
languish,  pine  away,  and  die  rather  than  receive  the 
curative  remedies  from  the  hand  of  man.  The  lady 
doctors  find  ready  access  to  the  female  apartments 
of  many  ladies  from  which  even  the  lady  evangel- 
ists are  excluded.  Hospitals  are  established,  and  na- 
tive females  are  educated  as  nurses  and  doctors. 
An  excellent  corps  of  Chinese  assistants  are  to  be 
found  in  nearly  every  hospital.  Some  of  the  assist- 
ants, after  careful  training  under  medical  mission- 
aries, are  sent  to  America  and  Europe  to  perfect 


What  is  Being  Done.  119 

themselves  in  their  profession.  Thus  the  Chinese 
are  being  prepared  to  take  care  of  their  own  sick.* 

The  medical  work  has  frequently  opened 
the  way  into  neighborhoods  and  families  for  the 
evangelistic  workers.  A  missionary  says:  "I  re- 
member that  when  I  was  endeavoring  to  establish 
a  station  in  the  interior  city  of  Hang-Chow,  and 
the  people  were  regarding  me  with  considerable 
prejudice  and  suspicion,  one  day,  while  I  was  speak- 
ing to  a  crowd  in  the  street,  a  soldier  forced  his  way 
toward  me,  and  addressing  me  very  cordially  and 
respectfully,  pointed  to  a  deep  scar  on  his  cheek.  He 
said  that  he  had  once  been  severely  wounded  in  bat- 
tle, and  that  in  the  hospital  in  Shanghai,  Dr.  

had  dressed  and  healed  his  wounds  and  saved  his  life. 
Another  man  in  the  same  company  said  that  he  had 

received  similar  kindness  from  Dr. in  Ningpo. 

Both  testified  that  in  the  hospital  they  were  taught 
the  same  doctrine  that  I  was  preaching.  Hundreds 
and  thousands  such  as  these  are  scattered  along  the 
coast  and  in  some  of  the  interior  provinces,  and 
are  constantly  bearing  testimony  in  our  favor." 

Connected  with  the  hospitals  are  chapels  where 
a  Bible-woman  reads  and  explains  the  Scriptures 

*See  Frontispiece— a  picture  of  Dr.  Hii  King  Eng,  who  has  charge 
of  one  of  the  Woman's  Foreign  Missionary  Society's  Hospitals  at 
Foochow. 


izo        Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

to  the  people  that  come  to  be  treated.  Many  who 
come  simply  to  be  healed  of  some  bodily  disease 
receive  healing  of  the  soul  by  the  Great  Physician. 
Frequently  the  missionaries  find  an  unexpected  but 
joyous  welcome  in  new  communities,  because  some 
persons  who  had  been  healed  in  the  hospitals  have 
returned  to  their  homes  and  told  their  neighbors 
and  relatives  of  the  medical  skill  and  kindness  of 
the  foreigners  and  especially  of  the  Physician  of 
Souls.  They  back  up  their  statements  by  showing 
that  though  they  were  once  sick  they  are  well,  and 
though  they  were  once  blind  now  they  see.  These 
object  lessons  of  Christian  kindness,  medical  skill, 
and  healing  grace  prepare  the  way  for  the  estab- 
lishing of  Christian  Churches  in  the  neighborhoods. 
A  medical  lady  gives  the  following  account :  "During 
the  year  .  .  .  interesting  trips  have  been  made 
into  the  country.  The  first  one  was  made  by  Miss 
and  myself  to  the  capital  of  the  province  to  at- 
tend the  wife  of  an  officer.  We  brought  her  home 
with  us,  and  while  here  undergoing  treatment  she 
studied  the  Bible  every  day  and  enjoyed  it  very 
much.  Later,  when  she  returned  home,  she  recov- 
ered completely,  and  now  two  of  her  sons  are  in  the 
mission  school.  Her  husband  gave  $100  for  the 


What  is  Being  Done.  121 

dispensary,  .  .  .  and  he  said  he  would  help  us 
in  raising  money  for  the  hospital." 

The  wife  of  Li  Hung  Chang,  China's  greatest 
statesman,  was  as  gracious  and  kind  as  she  was 
clever.  Unlike  most  Chinese  wives,  she  was  a  real 
helpmate  to  her  husband.  "She  was  treated  during 
a  critical  sickness  by  a  medical  missionary  lady,  and 
an  intimate  friendship  grew  up  between  them.  Lady 
Li  established  a  hospital  in  Tientsin,  and  she  was 
instrumental  in  establishing  charities  for  the  poor." 

The  foregoing  instances  show  how  the  medical 
work  unlocks  the  doors  of  the  homes  of  the  higher 
classes  and  admits  the  lowly  Nazarene.  The  fol- 
lowing shows  how  the  prejudices  of  the  people  are 
overcome  by  medical  work: 

"One  woman,  who  had  a  very  interesting  his- 
tory, came  to  our  dispensary,  and  we  asked  her  if 
she  could  not  come  to  the  hospital  for  regular  treat- 
ment; but  she  was  too  timid  to  come,  and  staid 
away  for  several  days,  and  when  she  did  return  she 
was  persuaded  to  remain,  and  soon  came  to  trust 
us  and  to  confide  in  us.  She  said  her  husband  was 
a  Christian  and  she  had  persecuted  him,  and  hated 
foreigners,  and  believed  all  the  bad  things  she 
had  heard  of  foreigners.  ...  It  was  beautiful 


122        Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

to  watch  the  unfolding  of  her  faith,  and  she  came 
to  understand  and  believe  in  the  one  true 
God  and  Jesus  Christ  whom  he  hath  sent.  She 
manifested  her  love  by  her  many  deeds  of  kindness 
to  the  other  patients." 

A  lady  doctor  was  opening  up  a  new  medical 
work.  Before  she  had  received  her  supply  of  surg- 
ical instruments  a  man  came  to  have  a  finger  ampu- 
tated. (Men  will  come  to  the  lady  physicians,  but 
they  will  not  allow  the  male  physicians  to  doctor  their 
wives.)  The  doctor  says:  "Though  I  had  no  ban- 
dage to  control  hemorrhage;  no  one  to  give  him 
anaesthetics;  no  instruments  save  those  of  my 
pocket  case;  yet  he  bravely  sat  down  by  my  table 
and  without  a  groan  allowed  me  to  perform  the 
operation.  I  had  to  call  my  cook-boy  to  assist  me, 
as  my  student  was  too  frightened  to  render  any  help. 
It  was  not  remarkable  that  the  finger,  despite  a 
skin-graft,  was  slow  of  healing.  He  came  nearly 
every  day  for  dressing  for  months.  During  that 
time  he  was  learning  much  of  soul  disease,  and,  as 
a  result  of  prayer  and  teaching,  has  become  a  Chris- 
tian, and  will  soon  receive  baptism.  His  gratitude, 
as  he  solely  had  to  support  his  aged  mother,  who 
nearly  starved  while  he  was  incapacitated  for  work, 
was  unbounded." 


What  is  Being  Done.  123 

Both  sexes  are  thus  reached  by  these  noble  fe- 
male medical  missionaries.  No  class  of  workers  are 
doing  more  for  the  evangelization  of  the  "Central 
Flowery  Land"  than  the  lady  missionaries  in  their 
functions  of  teachers,  evangelists,  and  doctors.  The 
work  being  done  by  Woman's  Foreign  Missionary 
Society  ladies  is  greatly  supplemented  by  the  efforts 
of  the  wives  of  missionaries  sent  out  by  other  Boards. 
These  married  ladies  go  to  the  expense  of  hiring 
servants  to  care  for  their  children,  and  to  do  most 
of  their  household  work,  that  they  may  devote  as 
much  time  as  possible  to  missionary  work.  They 
thus  frequently  save  the  missionary  society  the  ex- 
pense of  sending  out  and  supporting  an  extra  mis- 
sionary. I  know  of  one  such  lady  that  had  the  gen- 
eral oversight  of  three  Bible-readers,  a  women's 
school,  girls'  school,  and  eight  girls'  day-schools. 
The  united  efforts  of  Christian  women  working 
along  all  these  lines  have  brought  multiplied  thou- 
sands of  the  women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom  to  the 
Christian  churches,  and  thousands  to  sit,  like  Mary, 
at  the  feet  of  Jesus. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

MRS.  SIA  AHOK,  A  CHINESE  CHRISTIAN 
LADY. 

A  CHINESE  merchant  in  the  city  of  Foochow,  by 
the  name  of  Ahok,  was  early  impressed  with  the 
truthfulness  of  Christianity;  but  he  struggled  on  in 
semi-pagan  darkness  for  more  than  thirty  years  be- 
fore he  made  a  full  surrender  and  became  a  whole- 
hearted Christian.  Business  complications  were 
such  as  to  retard  his  progress  into  the  light.  His 
partners  in  his  vast  mercantile  interests  were  heath- 
ens ;  and  so  complicated  were  his  business  entangle- 
ments with  them  that  he  thought  they  could  not  dis- 
solve partnership  without  bringing  more  or  less 
financial  disaster  upon  the  members  of  the  firm.  The 
heathen  partners  were  loath  to  sacrifice  one-seventh 
of  their  weekly  trade  by  closing  their  places  of  busi- 
ness on  Sunday.  Mr.  Ahok  saw  that  he  could  not 
be  a  thorough  Christian  and  not  observe  the  Sab- 
bath. Thus  he  remained  undecided  for  long  years. 
He  was  always  kind  to  the  missionaries,  and  assisted 
them,  directly  or  indirectly,  financially  as  well  as 

124 


A  Chinese  Christian  Lady.  125 

by  his  personal  influence.  He  was  among  the  very 
first  to  welcome  the  new  missionaries  and  invite  them 
to  his  home  to  enjoy  his  hospitality.  One  lady  mis- 
sionary said :  "Very  soon  after  my  arrival  in  China, 
in  1878,  a  mandarin  called  at  the  schoolhouse  to  bid 
me  welcome.  I  was  astonished,  and  asked  him  why 
he  had  called  to  welcome  me  to  Foochow.  'Because,' 
he  answered,  'you  have  come  to  teach  my  country 
people  about  the  true  God.'  'Are  you  a  Christian?' 
I  asked.  'No,'  he  said;  'but  I  like  Christianity.  I 
go  to  church  sometimes,  and  I  know  the  doctrine  is 
true  and  the  preachers  are  good.'  We  had  a  very 
interesting  conversation,  and  when  he  left  I  pressed 
him  to  send  his  wife  to  see  me."  This  mandarin 
was  Mr.  Ahok.  In  this  manner  he  was  accustomed 
to  welcome  each  new  missionary  of  the  Cross  that 
arrived  at  the  "Happy  City,"  as  the  Chinese  call 
Foochow. 

Mr.  Ahok  put  forth  many  efforts  to  bring  his 
wife  and  family  under  Christian  influences.  The 
females  of  his  household  were  not  as  favorable  to  the 
truth  as  he  was.  His  own  mother  and  his  wife's 
mother  spent  much  time  in  his  home;  they,  as  well 
as  Mrs.  Ahok,  had  their  private  apartments  well 
stocked  with  idols.  These  high-class  ladies  were 
slow  to  believe  that  Christians  and  Christianity  were 


126        Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

what  they  were-  represented  to  be.  They  thought 
that  Christians  "talked  good,  but  did  not  live  good." 
They  finally  concluded  that  they  would  make  unex- 
pected calls  on  the  foreign  ladies,  and  study  their 
home  life.  One  day  the  missionary  quoted  above 
was  surprised  by  her  servant  running  in  and  ex- 
claiming, "Kuniong,  the  Tai  Tai  is  coming!"  (Ku- 
niong  means  unmarried  lady,  and  Tai  Tai  is  the 
title  of  a  rich  Chinese  lady.  "Which  Tai  Tai?" 
asked  the  missionary.  "Hoke  Lee  Sing  Sang  Ny- 
iong,"  answered  the  servant.  Then  chair-coolies 
were  seen,  bearing  closed  sedan-chairs,  and  crying 
out  as  they  approached,  "Twai  a  Twai  a"  (a  great 
person  is  coming).  The  sedans  were  set  down,  and, 
continues  the  lady  missionary,  "several  slave  girls 
and  other  attendants  helped  out  of  their  chairs  and 
led  in  the  two  ladies.  They  were  Mrs.  Ahok  and 
her  mother.  They  had  come  to  luncheon,  and  did 
not  let  me  know  because  they  wanted  to  see  an  Eng- 
lish luncheon  without  preparation.  They  staid  all 
afternoon,  looking  into  all  my  English  things  and 
listening  to  all  the  matron  and  I  said."  The  mis- 
sionary lady  was  engaged  by  Mr.  Ahok  to  teach 
the  females  of  his  family.  When  the  school  sum- 
mer vacation  came  the  missionary  was  again  sur- 
prised by  Mrs.  Ahok  making  the  request  to  be  per- 


MRS.  AHOK  AND  MAID. 


A  Chinese  Christian  Lady.  127 

mitted  to  spend  the  time  with  her.  "Why  do  you 
wish  to  stay  with  me?"  asked  the  lady  missionary. 
"O,"  she  answered,  "you  say  all  that  is  nice ;  I  want 
to  come  and  see  if  you  live  as  you  talk."  "But," 
urged  the  missionary,  "I  have  only  one  room  and  one 
bed;  how  can  you  come?"  "O,"  she  answered,  "I 
will  send  a  bed  and  have  it  put  up  in  your  room,  and 
I  will  bring  my  own  servant  to  wait  upon  me."  "She 
came,"  said  the  missionary,  "and  followed  me  about 
everywhere,  asking  me  to  translate  all  my  home 
letters,  and  all  I  wrote  home.  She  joined  me  in 
prayer  night  and  morning ;  that  is,  she  listened  while 
I  prayed.  One  night  I  went  to  bed  with  a  bad 
headache,  and  I  could  not  have  family  worship.  In 
the  middle  of  the  night  she  heard  me  awake,  and 
said,  'Is  your  head  better  ?'  'No/  I  answered.  'Then 
I  do  not  believe  in  your  God,'  she  said;  'for  you 
worshiped  him,  and  I  asked  him  to  make  you  better.' 
This  led  to  a  profitable  conversation  on  asking  ac- 
cording to  God's  will."  Once,  while  spending  some 
time  in  Mrs.  Ahok's  home,  this  lady  missionary 
noticed  that  her  actions  were  carefully  watched  by 
the  mother  of  her  hostess.  She  said:  "Each  morn- 
ing she  was  in  the  room  before  I  dressed.  Each 
day  I  endeavored  to  be  before  her  and  failed,  until 
one  day  I  arose  in  the  dark  and  then  she  refused 


i2g        Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

to  leave  for  her  breakfast.  I  wondered  why  she 
wanted  so  much  to  see  me  dress.  The  morning  was 
wearing  away.  At  last  she  said,  'Are  you  not  going 
to  pray  this  morning?'  'Yes,'  I  answered,  'I  have 
prayed.'  'And  you  did  not  let  me  see  you,'  she  said, 
in  an  aggrieved  tone.  'Why,'  I  asked,  'do  you  wish 
to  see  me  pray?'  'O,  it  is  so  very  funny,'  she  re- 
plied. 'You  pray  to  nothing.  How  can  nothing 
hear  you?'  Here  was  a  lovely  opportunity,  and  so 
I  went  on  telling  of  our  God,  who  is  a  spirit  per- 
vading everywhere  with  his  presence,  seeing  all  we 
do,  hearing  all  we  say.  She  listened  with  rapt  at- 
tention." 

It  was  found  no  easy  task  to  teach  the  women. 
One  day,  when  the  Bible-lesson  was  about  the  Good 
Shepherd,  and  the  missionary  was  comparing  her 
pupils  to  sheep  that  needed  the  care  of  the  Good 
Shepherd,  they  seemed  greatly  amused.  "What  is 
the  matter?"  asked  the  missionary.  "Why,"  they 
said,  "you  say  we  are  as  sheep,  and  we  have  no 
wool  on  our  backs,  and  we  have  not  four  legs."  The 
missionary  tried  again,  and  told  them  of  our  utterly 
lost  condition,  and  how  Jesus  left  his  heavenly  home 
to  come  to  seek  us  like  a  shepherd  would  seek  a 
lost  sheep.  Then  they  laughed  outright,  and  when 
asked  the  cause,  they  said,  "O,  Kuniong,  you  are 


A  Chinese  Christian  Lady.  129 

wrong  to-night ;  we  are  not  lost ;  we  are  all  at  home." 
The  faithful  missionary  did  not  lose  heart.  Al- 
though her  lady  pupils  were  somewhat  over-inquisi- 
tive, and,  from  a  Western  standpoint,  even  impu- 
dent in  inquiring  into  her  private  home  life,  and 
seemed  at  times  disrespectful,  yet  she  could  see  that 
a  favorable  impression  was  being  made. 

Mr.  Ahok  had  finally  surrendered  himself  to  the 
Savior.  On  one  of  his  business  trips  to  Hong-Kong 
he  made  up  his  mind  to  unite  with  the  Church,  which 
he  did.  When  he  returned  to  Foochow  he  identified 
himself  with  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  He 
was  greatly  worried  because  his  partners  objected 
to  closing  the  places  of  business  on  the  Sabbath. 
After  much  prayer  and  godly  counsel  from  the  mis- 
sionaries, he  gained  the  victory.  With  the  begin- 
ning of  the  New  Year  the  stores  were  closed.  He 
also  commenced  a  weekly  prayer-meeting  for  the 
benefit  of  the  employees.  Mr.  Akok  wrote  as  fol- 
lows concerning  his  Sabbath  closing  and  his  religious 
devotions:  "My  two  stores  are  closed  on  Sundays 
from  the  beginning  of  the  Chinese  New  Year.  I 
continue  to  have  Wednesday  meetings  in  my  store, 
and  Friday  meetings  at  my  residence,  and  I  hope 
God  will  lead  me  aright."  Mr.  Ahok  took  great  in- 
terest in  the  work  being  done  for  the  religious  in- 
9 


130        Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

struction  of  the  women  of  his  family.  Once  the 
missionary  called  on  him  to  close  the  Bible-study 
with  prayer.  He  did,  and  he  prayed  very  plainly  for 
each  one  present.  A  part  of  his  prayer  was  like  this : 
"O,  God  Almighty,  for  Jesus  thy  Son's  sake, 
look  down  on  my  mother.  She  has  one  hundred 
idols,  and  her  heart  is  so  hard.  Make  her  soft  to 
worship  thee,  for  she  is  nearly  eighty  years  old. 
There  is  my  wife,  too.  She  has  been  learning  about 
thee,  but  she  does  not  want  to  give  up  her  idols, 
and  she  does  not  worship  thee ;  make  her  a  changed 
heart.  Then  her  mother,  she  reads  thy  Word,  but 
she  does  not  believe  in  thee.  My  oldest  son's  wife 
is  very  hard ;  she  will  not  trust  thee."  Thus  he  men- 
tioned each  by  name.  That  prayer  was  answered  in 
the  very  near  future.  To  be  childless  is  a  great  af- 
fliction for  a  Chinese  wife.  Such  was  the  condition 
of  Mrs.  Ahok.  Mr.  Ahok's  first  wife  was  a  mother 
of  sons ;  hence  she  was  held  in  great  honor.  One  day 
when  Mrs.  Ahok  was  receiving  her  regular  Bible-les- 
son she  seemed  very  sad.  The  missionary  asked 
her  the  cause  of  her  sorrow.  She  said,  "O,  Kuniong, 
I  am  so  unhappy ;  I  am  not  head  in  my  own  house. 
You  know  here  in  China,  'without  children  without 
honor.'  Mr.  Ahok's  first  wife  had  children.  She 
died,  then  Mr.  Ahok  married  me.  I  have  been  his 


A  Chinese  Christian  Lady.  131 

wife  twelve  years,  and  he  wants  me  to  rule,  and  I 
can  not  because  I  have  no  child.  Would  not  your 
God  give  me  one  ?  Did  he  ever  give  any  one  a  son  ?" 
The  missionary  turned  to  the  story  of  Hannah,  and 
read  it,  and  said,  "It  is  true ;  God  can  do  all  things ; 
and  we  are  told  to  make  our  request  known  to  him." 
Then  they  knelt,  and  Mrs.  Ahok  led  in  prayer  for  the 
first  time.  She  said,  "O,  God,  Jehovah,  I  come  to 
thee,  now ;  help  me  not  to  doubt ;  teach  me  this 
good  doctrine ;  give  me  thy  Holy  Spirit,  and  please 
give  me  a  son  for  Jesus'  sake.  Amen." 

The  prayer  was  answered,  and  the  Ahok  family 
was  brightened  by  the  advent  of  a  son.  He  was 
known  as  "the  Christian-Doctrine  Boy."  Mrs.  Ahok 
ceased  to  worship  idols.  She  said,  "I  can  no  longer 
worship  idols,  but  I  do  not  know  how  to  be  a  true 
Christian;  I  must  pray  to  be  taught."  There  was 
great  rejoicing  in  the  Ahok  family.  Mr.  Ahok  wrote 
concerning  the  third  day  of  festivities  as  follows: 

"I  was  very  busy  yesterday  receiving  presents 
from  my  friends,  and  attending  my  guests.  I  had  a 
dinner  party  last  evening.  It  is  a  Chinese  cus- 
tom that,  three  days  after  the  birth  of  a  baby  in 
the  family,  the  friends  and  relatives  make  presents 
of  chickens  and  vermicelli  for  the  baby's  mother  to 
eat;  and  the  families  have  to  give  dinners  to  their 


132        Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

friends  in  returning  thanks  for  their  presents.  I 
received  a  great  many  chickens  and  vermicelli.  I 
think  if  Mrs.  Ahok  could  eat  all  of  them,  she  would 
become  twice  larger  than  she  is  now." 

After  the  missionary  teacher  had  returned  to 
England,  Mr.  Ahok  wrote  her  a  letter  in  which  he 
reported  the  following  good  news:  "I  am  happy 
to  tell  you  that  on  the  i8th  of  June  last  my  mother 
(eighty  years  old),  wife,  and  brother,  and  his  wife, 
were  baptized,  and  I  hope  that  they  will  carry  on 
Christian  work,  and  be  worthy,  true,  and  earnest 
Christians."  Mrs.  Ahok's  own  account  of  her  con- 
version is  as  follows : 

"I  never  thought  of  God,  nor  had  any  desire 
after  him,  but,  in  his  great  love  and  mercy,  he  had 
compassion  on  me,  and  sent  one  of  his  servants 
to  me  to  my  own  home.  ...  At  first  I  could 
not  understand  her  message,  and  my  heart  was  all 
darkness;  but  by  and  by  the  light  began  to  shine. 
It  was  as  you  have  often  seen  at  sunrise,  first  a  faint 
light,  when  nothing  is  seen  distinctly;  then  the  sun 
itself  appears,  and  in  a  flood  of  light  all  is  clear. 
So  it  was  in  my  heart  when  Christ  came  in ;  all  my 
doubts  and  fears  vanished,  and  I  found  a  joy  and 
peace  I  never  knew  before.  But  my  difficulty  then 
was  to  confess  that  I  was  a  follower  of  the  Lord 


A  Chinese  Christian  Lady.  133 

Jesus,  a  member  of  the  despised  band  of  Christians. 
I  thought  I  would  rather  die  than  acknowledge  it, 
and  was  tempted  to  think  I  might  worship  Christ  in 
secret.  But  this  also  I  took  to  the  Savior,  and  told 
him  my  weakness  and  fear  of  confessing  I  was  his 
servant,  and,"  she  added  with  her  face  all  aglow, 
"he  took  it  all  away,  and  I  now  feel  neither  fear  nor 
shame,  and  it  is  my  greatest  joy  to  go  to  the  houses 
of  my  rich  friends,  and  plead  with  them  to  give  up 
their  idols,  and  find  the  same  peace  that  I  have 
found  in  serving  God." 

Mrs.  Ahok  gave  her  strength  to  work  among  the 
wealthy,  because,  being  a  rich  woman  of  high  stand- 
ing herself,  she  could  find  access  to  the  "high-class" 
women  when  the  common  Bible-reader  and  foreign 
missionary  were  frequently  excluded.  She  was  also 
kind  and  generous  to  the  poor.  A  letter  that  she 
wrote  to  a  missionary  teacher  who  had  much  to  do 
with  leading  her  to  Christ  will  show  the  peculiar 
traits  of  this  godly  Chinese  lady. 

"FoocHow,  February  16,  1888. 
"Mv  DEAR  MRS.  FAGG, — Many  thanks  for  your 
letter  and  the  book  and  cards,  which  you  so  kindly 
think  of  me  to  send  them,  and  gave  me.     I  am  so 

NOTB. — This  letter  is  not  changed  from  the  form  in  which  it  came 
from  Mrs.  Ahok's  pen. 


134        Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

sorry  that  I  could  not  write  and  thank  you  before 
this,  as  I  had  not  the  time,  and  learned  little  Eng- 
lish ;  but  I  am  so  thankful  and  glad  that  Mrs.  Sing 
is  staying  with  me  for  the  Chinese  New  Year.  She 
helped  me  to  write  this  letter  to  you.  I  had  very 
bad  sore  eyes  last  month.  I  could  not  see  or  do 
anything,  but  very  thankful  to  say  that  I  am  so  much 
better  now ;  not  quite  well  yet.  I  must  put  on  spec- 
tacles. I  can  not  read  any  letters  without  them. 
This  is  the  Chinese  New  Year.  You  are  very  often 
in  my  thoughts,  and  often  think  of  your  goodness 
and  kindness  to  me  and  to  Charley;  when  he  was 
very  ill  you  took  care  and  nursed  him  well.  I  never 
forget  it.  When  are  you  coming  back  to  Foochow 
again?  I  should  like  to  see  you,  hoping  you  will 
come  here  some  day  for  a  change  if  you  could.  Mrs. 
Stewart,  Mrs.  Sing,  and  some  of  the  ladies  used  to 
go  with  me  to  the  city  to  visit  the  rich  people,  and 
tell  them  of  the  great  love  of  God  to  sinners.  They 
all  were  very  nice  and  attentive  to  hear,  but  they  have 
not  made  up  their  minds  to  believe.  Also  used  to 
visit  the  houses  near  my  house,  and  also  to  Po-Na- 
Sang,  too.  We  pray  God  to  open  their  eyes  that  they 
may  see  Jesus  as  their  Savior,  who  came  to  save 
them.  I  hope  I  shall  be  able  to  work  again  after 
the  Chinese  New  Year,  if  nothing  happens. 

"I  dare  say  you  have  heard  about  my  mother. 
She  has  been  baptized  last  year.  She  sends  her 
love  to  you.  She  comes  here  very  often  to  the 
prayer-meeting,  and  also  to  the  service  on  Sundays. 


A  Chinese  Christian  Lady.  135 

She  very  often  thinks  of  you,  and  should  like  to  see 
you,  too.  My  children — Charley  and  Jimmy — go  to 
the  Sunday-school  now  every  Sunday.  I  asked  a 
Christian  teacher  to  teach  them  last  year  in  my 
house.  They  learned  the  Bible  picture-book,  and 
they  know  some  of  the  stories  from  the  first  to  the 
thirtieth  picture  quite  well.  My  second  daughter- 
in-law  and  her  husband  have  been  disgraced,  and 
disbehaved  themselves.  I  am  quite  grieved  about 
them.  They  have  gone  from  my  house,  which  I 
am  sorry  to  say.  My  second  daughter-in-law  was 
very  ill  last  year.  She  wished  to  be  baptized,  and 
was  baptized,  but  was  very  sorry  what  happened 
with  her  now.  Please,  will  you  kindly  pray  for  her 
and  her  husband,  that  they  may  see  of  their  own 
sins,  and  come  back  again  to  God?  If  they  are 
humble  to  him,  he  will  not  turn  them  away.  My 
eldest  daughter-in-law  is  very  hard-hearted;  she 
was  exhorted  by  many  friends,  and  prayed  for,  but 
she  has  not  made  up  her  mind  to  believe  in  the  Lord 
Jesus  as  her  Savior;  I  am  very  sorry  for  her;  but 
we  pray  God  to  open  her  eyes  that  she  may  some 
day  come  out  boldly  to  confess  the  Lord  Jesus,  and 
trust  him  as  her  Savior.  Last  Conference,  Misses 
Newcombe  invited  me  to  stay  with  them  for  a  week. 
I  went  to  the  meeting  every  day.  I  walked  over 
with  them  to  go,  and  to  come  back  six  times  a  day, 
and  I  did  not  feel  tired  or  hurt  my  feet  at  all ;  I  feel 
quite  well  and  strong,  and  was  much  refreshed.  I 
enjoyed  it  very  much.  My  little  boy  Jimmy  went 


136        Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

with  me,  too,  to  stay  with  the  Newcombes ;  he  went 
to  the  meeting,  and  heard  about  giving  up  wine, 
so  he  has  given  up  wine  now.  He  bought  a  but- 
ton, which  has  a  Chinese  character — Kai-Chin.  If 
anybody  invited  him  to  the  feast  and  gave  him 
wine,  he  would  say,  'No,  I  have  given  up  wine.'  I 
hope  he  will  keep  it  all  the  days  oi  his  life. 

"I  am  very  sorry  to  tell  you  that  Mr.  Stewart 
is  not  well  yet.  I  am  afraid  if  he  is  not  well  he 
will  go  to  England,  and  we  shall  be  so  sorry  to  lose 
them.  Last  March  Mr.  Ahok  went  to  Singapore, 
to  Hong-Kong,  to  Amoy,  and  Formosa,  all  about 
five  months.  He  went  to  the  jail  and  prison  to  teach 
to  the  heathens  about  the  gospel  of  Christ.  While 
he  was  in  Singapore  he  had  very  nice  times  there. 
Last  night  Mr.  Ahok  started  to  Hong-Kong  for 
some  engagements;  he  said  that  he  would  be  back 
in  a  fortnight.  Dr.  Corey  is  going  home  soon,  as 
she  is  very  ill. 

"I  am  going  to  tell  you  about  the  great  marriage 
of  the  son  of  the  richest  man  in  Formosa  to  the  great- 
granddaughter  of  the  great  mandarin  in  Foochow, 
whose  grave  so  many  people  used  to  see,  near  the 
recreation-ground.  It  is  a  very  beautiful,  big  grave. 
His  great-granddaughter  married  the  richest  man's 
son  in  Formosa.  He  came  to  Foochow  to  be  mar- 
ried. It  was  a  very  grand  wedding.  I  never  saw 
such  a  wedding.  It  was  a  very  great  crowd  of  peo- 
ple; thousands  of  people  went  to  see  the  bride, 
whether  rich  or  poor.  The  bride  had  to  stand  on 


A  Chinese  Christian  Lady.  137 

the  table,  where  the  people  could  see  her.  Some 
of  the  chairs  and  benches  broke  down  on  account 
of  the  crowd  of  people,  who  knocked  about  and 
made  such  a  rouse;  but  the  headman  of  the  wed- 
ding did  not  say  anything,  lest  they  would  make  an 
uproar.  This  custom  is  that  any  people  can  go  and 
see.  They  went  to  see  the  bride  from  7  to  II  o'clock 
at  night.  The  headman  was  very  good  and  patient. 
He  dared  not  say  a  word  to  make  the  people  angry  or 
send  them  away.  About  four  hundred  people  car- 
ried the  tablets  and  the  bride's  presents,  just  like 
they  carried  procession.  Some  of  the  missionary 
ladies  should  like  to  go  and  see  the  bride,  but  they 
would  not  allow  it,  as  they  are  so  afraid  that  many 
of  the  Chinese  will  come  and  see,  too,  and  to  make  a 
rouse  again,  in  case  they  should  get  some  troubles. 
They  said,  before  they  go  back  to  Formosa,  that 
they  will  come  out  to  my  house,  and  invite  some  of 
the  ladies  to  come  and  see  the  bride;  I  wish  you 
went  to  see  her.  Last  Wednesday  the  bride's 
mother-in-law  came  to  wish  me  a  happy  New  Year. 
She  will  come  again  before  they  go  away,  and  stay 
here  on  their  way  to  Formosa.  This  lady  knows 
about  the  Bible.  She  says  it  is  a  good  doctrine. 
Some  of  the  missionaries  in  Formosa  gave  her 
some  books  and  Bible  to  read.  I  talked  to  her  about 
this  religion.  She  seemed  very  nice  about  it.  The 
prayer-meeting  of  Friday  evening,  held  in  the  house 
by  you,  we  still  keeping  it  now,  and  we  have  it  every 
Friday.  The  American  Church  appointed  Mr.  Sia, 


138        Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

one  of  the  Chinese  clergymen,  to  go  to  America  to 
tell  the  people  there  about  the  work  here;  so  Mr. 
Sites  goes  with  him  to  America  to  translate  it  for 
him.  The  Church  appointed  Mr.  Ahok  to  go,  but 
he  can  not  leave  his  work,  so  they  asked  Mr.  Sia 
to  go  instead  of  him.  I  heard  you  have  four  daugh- 
ters; you  are  quite  rich  with  daughters.  Please 
give  my  kind  regards  to  Mr.  Fagg  and  to  yourself. 
•  "Yours  affectionately, 

"SiA  AHOK." 


Mrs.  Ahok,  in  accordance  with  the  earnest  so- 
licitation of  the  English  missionaries,  went  to  Eng- 
land to  plead  with  the  Christians  of  that  land  to 
send  more  missionaries  to  help  rescue  the  perish- 
ing women  of  China.  The  visit  and  addresses  of 
this  noble  woman  created  a  profound  impression 
wherever  she  went  throughout  the  United  King- 
dom. The  following  extract  from  one  of  her  ad- 
dresses should  appeal  to  the  hearts  of  all  lovers  of 
humanity : 

"Since  I  have  been  here,  what  has  struck  me 
more  than  anything  is,  that  the  women  of  England 
have  such  wonderful  blessings  from  God.  I  see 
them  go  out,  even  at  night;  I  think  they  must  be 
very  strong.  As  I  see  the  blessings  that  they  en- 
joy, it  makes  my  heart  still  more  pity  China.  I  am 


A  Chinese  Christian  Lady.  139 

anxious  to  tell  you  something  about  my  country- 
women. Many  here  may  know  it  already,  but  I 
should  like  to  remind  those  who  do  not,  that  in 
China  there  is  the  cruel  custom  of  binding  women's 
feet,  and  it  makes  it  almost  impossible  for  them  to 
leave  their  own  houses  or  to  walk  outdoors.  I  my- 
self have  bound  feet,  and  it  is  extremely  difficult 
for  me  to  move  about.  You  may  ask  how  I  was 
able  to  come  to  England.  It  is  solely  trusting  in 
God's  great  power.  I  have  heard  some  people  say 
that  I  am  come  to  England  for  pleasure;  but  I  do 
not  think  there  can  be  much  pleasure  in  coming 
as  I  have  done.  That  long  journey  alone  is  enough 
to  make  one  cry.  My  one  thought  is  to  get  back 
to  my  own  country  as  quickly  as  I  can,  after  doing 
the  duty  which  God  has  called  me  to  do.  Since  I 
have  been  here  these  two  months,  I  have  never  once 
been  out  for  my  own  amusement;  but  every  day 
I  have  had  some  opportunity  of  speaking  to  people 
about  the  needs  of  the  Chinese  women,  and  that  is 
all  my  heart  desires. 

"One  thing  especially  filled  my  heart  with  pity 
as  I  think  of  my  sisters  in  China, — the  time  of  their 
death.  I  have  myself  been  with  those  who  are 
passing  out  of  the  life  into  the  unknown  darkness ; 
they  murmur  that  they  see  evil  spirits  coming  for 


140        Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

them,  and  say,  'I  see  this  and  that  other  spirit/  so 
that  one  attendant  dare  not  stay  in  the  room  alone 
with  them ;  there  must  be  five  or  six  people.  They 
say  the  evil  spirits  are  filling  the  room,  and  com- 
ing to  take  away  that  poor  soul.  Sometimes,  as 
the  watchers  beside  the  dying  hear  the  cry  of  an 
owl,  of  which  they  have  great  fear  in  China,  they 
think  it  is  the  messenger  from  the  other  world, 
calling  the  soul  of  the  departing  one.  The  reason 
of  this  terrible  dread  and  anguish  of  mind  is  that 
they  do  not  know  the  love  of  God,  but  worship 
evil  spirits.  Many  of  them,  when  they  are  very, 
very  ill  indeed,  do  not  ask  the  doctor  to  give  them 
medicine,  but  send  and  inquire  at  the  idol  temples 
what  medicine  should  be  taken.  If  a  man  is  very 
ill  indeed,  they  send  to  the  great  temple  at  Foo- 
chow,  and  pray  to  seven  or  eight  idols  for  his  re- 
covery. These  things  ought  to  fill  your  heart  with 
compassion. 

"I  will  give  you  a  few  words  of  my  own  experi- 
ence. Some  years  ago  I  worshiped  idols,  just  as  these 
women  do  now,  and  seemed  to  be  quite  under  the 
power  of  the  idols ;  but  now,  thanks  to  God's  great 
mercy,  he  has  delivered  me.  My  husband's  mother, 
who  had  also  become  a  Christian,  died  about  two 
years  ago;  her  death  was  perfect  peace,  so  different 


A  Chinese  Christian  Lady.  141 

from  that  I  told  you  just  now  of  the  heathen's  death- 
bed. As  we  sat  in  the  room  with  her,  we  asked  her 
if  she  was  afraid,  and  her  answer  was,  'It  is  all 
peace,'  and  so  she  passed  away  to  be  with  her 
Savior." 

Mr.  Ahok  was  greatly  pleased  to  have  his  wife 
visit  England  in  the  interest  of  Christian  missions 
in  China.  But  a  sad  experience  was  to  come  to 
him  and  his.  Before  his  loved  companion  returned 
from  her  journey  in  the  interests  of  her  country- 
women he  heard  the  call  of  the  Master,  "Come  up 
higher."  As  soon  as  Mrs.  Ahok  heard  of  her  hus- 
band's sickness  she  turned  her  face  homeward.  She 
returned  to  China  by  the  way  of  Canada,  which  is 
the  shortest  route;  but  she  was  too  late.  One  of 
the  native  workers  asked  Mr.  Ahok  a  short  time 
before  his  death,  "Is  your  heart  at  peace  ?"  He  said, 
"Yes."  Again  the  native  Christian  said,  "Be  anx- 
ious for  nothing."  He  said,  "No;  it  is  the  will 
of  God."  He,  in  this  state  of  mind,  sank  peace- 
fully to  rest.  His  Christian  life  was  full  of  good 
works.  One  of  the  greatest  acts  of  his  life  was 
the  founding  of  the  Anglo-Chinese  College  at  Foo- 
chow.  He  gave  $10,000  to  this  noble  work.  A  fine 
property,  that  must  have  cost  $25,000  originally, 
was  offered  for  sale.  This  property  was  purchased 


142        Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

with  the  $10,000,  and  donated  to  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church  for  college  purposes.  Over  two 
hundred  and  fifty  Chinese  youths  are  now  enrolled 
in  the  school,  and  it  is  doing  most  excellent  Chris- 
tian work. 

It  would  have  been  a  great  comfort  in  his  last 
moments  to  have  had  his  loved  wife  with  him,  but 
he  did  not  murmur.  He  said,  "I  leave  her  to  God." 
Mrs.  Ahok  did  not  learn  of  his  death  until  on  the 
house-boat  on  her  way  up  the  river  from  the 
steamer  anchorage.  Dr.  Sites  (who  had  been  the 
one  missionary  of  all  others  in  whom  Mr.  Ahok 
trusted  the  most)  tenderly  broke  the  sad  news  to 
her.  "She  sat  like  a  statue  for  some  time,  then 
utterly  broke  down." 

Everything  was  done  to  comfort  her  that  could 
be  done  by  both  missionaries  and  native  Christians. 
She  frequently  said  between  her  sobs,  "If  I  could 
only  see  him  once  more,  and  tell  him  all  I  have 
done  in  England !"  Since  the  death  of  her  husband, 
Mrs.  Ahok  has  given  her  whole  time  to  Christian 
work  among  the  rich  and  official  families  of  Foo- 
chow.  The  life  of  this  gentle  Christian  Bible-reader 
is  "like  ointment  poured  forth."  She  sheds  fra- 
grance wherever  she  goes. 

The  Ahok  homestead  consisted  of    two    large 


A  Chinese  Christian  Lady.  143 

dwelling-houses;  one,  a  native  structure,  furnished 
entirely  according  to  the  Chinese  style;  the  other 
is  a  foreign  building,  elegantly  furnished  with  the 
best  of  Brussels  carpet,  sofas,  easy-chairs,  pictures, 
bookcases,  bric-a-brac,  and  other  fine  foreign  fur- 
niture, as  well  as  exceptionally  fine  specimens  of 
Chinese  porcelain  and  lacquer.  Mrs.  Ahok,  in  her 
great  zeal  for  the  Christianization  of  the  high-class 
ladies,  set  apart  her  handsome  foreign  residence  for 
a  school  in  which  these  representatives  of  the  Chi- 
nese elite  might  receive  a  Christian  education. 


CHAPTER  X. 
THE  CHINESE  EMPRESS  DOWAGER. 

THE  empress  dowager,  who  is  now  practically 
the  Empress  of  China,  was  not  a  slave-girl  in  her 
childhood,  as  was  commonly  reported  by  newspaper 
correspondents.  Neither  was  she  the  daughter  of 
a  Canton  candy-huckster,  who  by  her  uncommon 
beauty  attracted  the  attention  of  a  passing  officer. 
Through  this  officer  a  knowledge  of  her  beauty  first 
reached  the  ear  of  Emperor  Hien-fung.  The  "Son 
of  Heaven,"  so  says  the  story,  sent  for  her,  and 
she  became  a  member  of  his  harem,  then  second 
wife,  and  finally  Empress  of  China.  These  romantic 
stories  are  doubtless  products  of  the  highly-imagina- 
tive minds  of  some  globe-trotters. 

Dr.  W.  A.  P.  Martin,  ex-president  of  Tung-wen 
ColK-ge  at  Peking,  says  her  father's  family  was 
Manchu-Tartar,  and  "of  noble  blood."  Mr.  W.  E. 
Curtis,  writing  about  the  empress  says,  "She  is 
the  daughter  of  a  Manchu  soldier,  who  was  a  Tautai, 
or  governor  at  Wuhu."  Thus  these  pretty  romances 
must  be  given  up  and  prounounced  apocryphal,  for 

144 


THE  EMPRESS  DOWAGER. 


Chinese  Empress  Dowager.  145 

there  is  no  better  authority  on  "things  Chinese" 
than  Dr.  Martin. 

Many  girls  in  China  are  not  considered  worth 
naming.  They  are  simply  numbered;  but  the  little 
bundle  of  female  humanity  that  was  to  be  the  ruler 
of  400,000,000  people  was  given  a  name.  She  was 
called  Tszchi  Toanyu  Kanghi  Chuangeheng  Chin- 
hien  Chung  Sih.  No  wonder  she  became  a  great 
woman,  if  there  is  anything  in  a  name. 

Being  a  Tartar,  her  feet  were  never  bound. 
When  a  girl  her  complexion  was  sub-olive,  and  her 
eyes  and  hair  were  a  dull  black.  Emperor  Hien- 
fung  chose  her  for  his  second  wife.  His  first  wife 
being  childless,  when  Tszchi  presented  him  with  a 
son,  he  was  so  overjoyed  that  he  broke  custom  and 
advanced  her  to  the  position  of  empress,  the  real 
legal  empress  retaining,  nominally,  precedence.  The 
empresses  occupied  separate  palaces.  That  of  Tszchi 
was  known  as  the  West  Palace,  while  the  childless 
queen,  whose  name  was  Tsi  An,  occupied  the  East 
Palace. 

Emperor  Hien-fung  fled  into  exile  when  the 
English  and  French  armies  approached  Peking 
during  the  second  "Chinese  war."  He  died  while 
he  was  hiding  from  his  European  enemies.  The 
capital  city  was  taken,  and  the  beautiful  summer 

10 


146        Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

palace  was  pillaged.  When  the  death  of  the  em- 
peror became  known,  two  ambitious  "princes  of  the 
blood"  took  possession  of  the  boy  king,  the  son  of 
Tszchi,  and  became  his  self-appointed  guardians. 
They  tried  to  reconcile  the  queen  mothers  (one  the 
legal  mother  and  the  other  the  real  mother  of  the 
youthful  heir  to  the  throne)  by  proclaiming  them 
joint  regents  during  the  minority  of  the  little  em- 
peror. Prince  Kung,  an  uncle  of  the  boy  sovereign, 
challenged  the  authority  usurped  by  the  self-ap- 
pointed guardians,  Su  Shun  and  Toan-hoan,  and 
had  them  decapitated,  for  he  believed,  as  did  the 
queen  regents,  that  they  intended  to  make  way  with 
the  dowager  empresses,  the  prince  himself,  and  pos- 
sibly the  young  emperor.  The  dowager  empresses 
showed  their  appreciation  of  this  action  of  Prince 
Kung  by  appointing  him  joint  regent  with  them- 
selves. The  prince  soon  became  altogether  too 
officious  to  suit  the  queen  regents,  and  they  planned 
to  get  rid  of  him.  Charges  were  trumped  up  against 
him,  the  chief  of  which  was  that  he  treated  His 
Majesty,  the  emperor  (a  boy  ten  years  of  age) 
disrespectfully. 

Prince  Kung  was  degraded  from  all  his  offices, 
and  stripped  of  his  titles.  Soon  the  empresses  dow- 
ager had  it  proclaimed  that  the  prince  was  very 


Chinese  Empress  Dowager.  147 

penitent,  and  had  thrown  himself  prostrate  at  the 
feet  of  the  "Son  of  Heaven,"  and  begged  his  for- 
giveness. Then  the  prince  was  restored  to  all  his 
offices  save  being  co-regent,  and  all  his  titles  were 
restored  to  him,  and  an  extra  title  was  thrown  in  for 
good  measure.  The  whole  thing  was  a  ruse  to  get 
rid  of  Prince  Kung  as  joint  regent.  Empress 
Tszchi  was  undoubtedly  the  moving  spirit  in  this 
successful  political  game.  The  two  widow  em- 
presses seemed  to  get  along  harmoniously  in  their 
unique  positions  as  joint  widows  and  joint  regents. 
They  were  also  sisters.  They  were  exceedingly 
tender-hearted  and  generous  toward  their  subjects. 
During  the  terrible  famine  in  the  Shansi  Province 
they  refused  to  have  meat  prepared  for  their  house- 
holds, declaring  that  they  would  eat  no  meat  while 
their  subjects  were  starving.  Thus  they  saved  sev- 
enty-five dollars  daily  from  their  own  tables,  and 
turned  the  money  into  the  famine-fund. 

Tszchi  had  her  queenly  heart  saddened  by  the 
death  of  her  son,  Tung-Chi,  after  he  had  reigned  but 
a  short  time.  A  council  of  princes,  led  by  the  mother 
of  the  dead  emperor,  selected  Kuang-Hsu,  a  cousin 
of  Tung-Chi,  to  succeed  to  the  throne.  The  em- 
press of  the  Eastern  Palace  then  adopted  Kuang- 
Hsu  as  her  son,  and  he  ascended  the  "chair  of  state," 


148        Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

April  12,  1875,  when  he  was  only  four  years  old, 
and  the  empresses  dowager  continued  to  act  as  co- 
regents.  In  1880  the  empress  of  the  Eastern  Pal- 
ace died,  and  Tszchi  became  absolute  in  authority 
as  sole  regent.  This  authority  she  continued  to  ex- 
ercise until  March  4,  1889,  when  her  ward,  having 
reached  the  age  of  eighteen  (or,  counting  him  a 
year  old  at  birth,  as  the  Chinese  do,  he  was  nine- 
teen), assumed  the  reins  of  government. 

For  thirty  years  Tszchi  exercised  authority  as 
regent  in  an  empire  where  women  are  despised. 
She  proved  herself  to  be  the  ablest  ruler  China 
has  had  since  the  days  of  Kien-lung;  and  undoubt- 
edly the  ablest  of  China's  long  line  of  empresses. 

Her  love  for  the  people  and  her  patriotism  have 
not  waned  with  her  age.  On  her  sixtieth  birthday 
her  subjects  presented  her  with  $10,000,000  as  an 
expression  of  their  esteem.  This  vast  sum  she 
turned  into  the  war  fund  to  help  her  struggling 
nation  in  the  short  but  bloody  war  with  Japan.  The 
Christian  women  of  China  remembered  the  empress 
dowager  on  that  sixtieth  birthday  by  presenting  her 
with  a  handsome  copy  of  the  New  Testament.  She 
received  it  very  graciously.  It  doubtless  created 
an  impression  in  the  palace,  for  the  emperor  sent 


Chinese  Empress  Dowager.  149 

immediately  to  the  nearest  Bible-house  and  pur- 
chased a  copy  for  himself. 

When  Prince  Henry  of  Prussia  was  received 
by  the  emperor,  the  hand  of  the  "Son  of  Heaven" 
trembled  as  he  shook  the  palm  of  the  doughty  Ger- 
man; but  the  empress  dowager  received  the  prince 
with  the  greatest  composure,  and  asked  him  many 
intelligent  questions.  Henry  was  surprised  to  find 
her  possessed  of  such  marked  mental  ability. 

The  chief  advisers  of  the  empress  dowager  in 
matters  of  state  during  her  thirty  years'  regency 
were  Prince  Kung  and  Li  Hung  Chang.  They 
doubtless  exercised  a  great  influence  in  court  af- 
fairs, but  Tszchi  was  far  from  being  clay  to  be 
molded  at  their  will.  She  has  a  will  of  her  own, 
and  frequently  exercised  it.  From  a  Chinese  stand- 
point she  is  a  progressive  woman.  China  made  slow 
but  steady  advancement  toward  Western  ways  of 
doing  things  during  the  long  period  of  her  regency. 
Those  persons  who  expected  China  to  adopt  West- 
ern methods  as  rapidly  as  did  Japan  were  prone 
to  be  disappointed.  The  young  emperor  found  out 
to  his  sorrow  that  it  is  best  to  make  haste  slowly  in 
the  "Flowery  Land."  His  rashness  caused  a  reaction 
that  greatly  delayed  the  wheels  of  progress.  If  he 


150        Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

had  been  more  moderate  in  pushing  his  reforms, 
he  might  have  become  the  Moses  of  China,  who 
would  have  finally  liberated  his  nation  from  the 
thralldom  of  antiquated  customs  and  laws.  But 
by  endeavoring  to  make  the  sleepy  old  giant  move 
with  the  rapidity  of  a  Western  mail-train,  he  aroused 
the  ire  of  the  mandarins.  These  so-called  wise  men 
appealed  to  Empress  Tszchi,  and  she  immediately 
seized  the  reins  of  government,  and  sent  the  young 
emperor  into  retirement. 

The  conservative  Celestial  statesmen  wished  to 
receive  their  instructions  from  the  throne  in  the 
good,  old-fashioned  way — written  with  the  vermil- 
lion  pencil  on  yellow  paper,  and  delivered  by  courtly 
couriers  appointed  for  that  sacred  duty  by  His  Maj- 
esty, the  emperor.  To  use  the  foreign  devil's  tel- 
egraph to  send  these  imperial  edicts  was  sacrilegious, 
even  though  it  saved  a  month  of  precious  time.  The 
plans  of  His  Majesty,  by  which  he  would  displace 
the  time-honored  system  of  Confucian  education 
with  a  system  based  on  foreign  ideas,  and  that  taught 
modern  science  and  philosophy,  were  considered  so 
revolutionary,  and  such  an  insult  to  China's  great- 
est sage,  that  they  could  not  be  tolerated  at  all.  To 
grant  concession  after  concession  to  foreign  corpo- 
rations, allowing  them  to  build  railroads,  operate 


Chinese  Empress  Dowager.  151 

steamship-lines,  and  develop  mechanical  industries, 
would  result  in  throwing  thousands  of  burden-bear- 
ers and  boatmen  out  of  employment,  and  would 
doubtless  cause  the  graves  that  contained  the  dust 
of  the  Celestial  dead  to  be  disturbed.  He  also  issued 
an  edict  that  Buddhist  temples  should  be  used  as 
schoolhouses.  Imagine  what  an  uproar  there  would 
be  if  the  President  (providing  he  had  the  author- 
ity) would  issue  an  edict  that  all  American  churches 
should  be  used  as  schoolhouses !  Then,  the  "Son 
of  Heaven"  so  forgot  his  dignity  as  to  mount  a 
bicycle  and  take  a  header.  In  all  these  things  the 
youthful  potentate,  in  the  eyes  of  the  Confucian 
scholars,  greatly  erred,  and  was  compelled  to  prac- 
tically abdicate  in  favor  of  his  aunt,  the  empress 
dowager.  The  reaction  that  caused  the  downfall  of 
Kuang-Hsu  was  a  sad  thing  for  foreigners  in  China, 
and  especially  for  missionary  work  in  that  land. 

Those  that  are  in  a  position  to  know,  say  that 
during  the  nine  years  that  Kuang-Hsu  had,  to  all 
outward  appearances,  controlled  the  affairs  of  state, 
Empress  Dowager  Tszchi  was  the  unseen  power 
behind  the  throne  and  dictated  the  policy  of  the  gov- 
ernment. Nearly  every  important  reform  move- 
ment had  her  sanction,  and  it  was  only  when  the 
emperor  became  uncontrollably  rash,  and  had  lost 


152         Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

his  influence  with  the  conservative  element,  and 
with  even  the  better  representatives  of  the  radical 
element,  that  Empress  Tszchi  hastened  from  her 
palace  at  Echo  Park,  and  placed  herself  at  the  head 
of  the  Celestial  Government  in  the  Forbidden  City. 
Being  forced  by  circumstances  to  take  her  stand 
with  the  Conservatives,  she  was  compelled  to  exe- 
cute those  advisers  that  had  caused  the  young  em- 
peror to  make  his  so-called  blunders.  She  had  the 
choice  of  either  sending  the  emperor  into  retire- 
ment and  punishing  his  counselors,  or  losing  her 
influence  with  the  Conservatives  and  letting  the 
reins  of  government  slip  out  of  her  fingers  alto- 
gether. She  chose  the  former.  When  the  aggres- 
sion of  foreigners  aroused  the  people,  and  they  in- 
augurated the  Boxer  Rebellion,  she  was  charged 
with  being  in  collusion  with  the  rebels.  And  pos- 
sibly she  was.  When  we  remember  that  the  Boxer 
Movement  at  the  first  was  directed  as  much  against 
the  empress  dowager  and  the  Manchu  dynasty  as 
against  other  foreigners  in  China,  then  Tszchi 's 
astuteness  becomes  still  more  evident.  She  saw 
clearly  the  only  way  she  could  save  the  throne  to 
the  Manchus  was  to  coquette  with  the  Boxers,  and 
turn  an  Anti-Manchu  Movement  into  an  Anti-for- 
eign Movement,  with  herself  and  the  Manchu  princes 


Chinese  Empress  Dowager.  153 

as  leaders.  By  so  doing  she  was  enabled  to  keep 
herself  in  the  saddle  and  a  Manchu  on  the  throne. 
She  is  charged  with  duplicity  during  the  reign  of 
terror  in  Peking.  It  is  said  she  "both  encouraged 
the  Boxers  and  protected  the  legations."  This  was 
probably  true  also.  If  she  had  not  protected  the 
foreign  legations,  they  doubtless  would  have  been 
swept  out  of  existence  in  a  single  week.  If  she 
had  allowed  them  to  be  annihilated,  she  knew  full 
well  that  the  foreign  nations  would  have  dethroned 
the  Manchus,  and  probably  her  own  life  would  have 
been  forfeited.  If  she  had  not  coquetted  with  the 
Boxers,  and  had  revealed  the  fact  to  them  that  she 
was  protecting  the  foreigners,  they  would  have 
doubtless  turned  against  her,  and  with  the  large  half 
of  the  imperial  army  that  had  gone  over  to  the 
Boxers,  they  would  have  defeated  the  pro-foreign 
branch  of  the  army,  would  have  killed  Emperor 
Kuang-Hsu,  and  forced  her  to  take  her  own  life. 
With  wonderful  tact  she  played  the  foreign  and 
anti-foreign  factions  against  each  other,  and  thus 
kept  the  Boxers  and  the  rebel  army  from  concen- 
trating all  their  energy  on  the  foreign  legations, 
and  in  this  way  saved  the  foreigners,  and  at  the 
same  time  retained  her  influence  over  the  Boxers, 
and  also  saved  the  throne  to  the  Manchus.  In  a 


154        Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

Bismarck  this  would  be  called  statesmanship,  but 
in  Manchu  Tszchi  it  is  called  unpardonable  du- 
plicity. 

When  the  foreign  armies  reached  Peking,  and 
the  empress  dowager,  emperor,  and  Chinese  court 
fled  in  consternation  from  the  city,  it  was  declared 
that  the  end  had  come  to  Manchu  authority  in 
China.  Another  declaration  was  that  Peking  would 
never  be  the  capital  city  again;  for  the  fugitive 
ruler  would  never  return  to  the  Forbidden  City 
after  it  had  been  desecrated  by  the  foreign  devils. 
Still  another  prediction  was  that  the  dowager  em- 
press would  never  dare  to  return  to  Peking,  even  if 
the  emperor  and  his  court  did.  In  spite  of  these 
predictions,  the  Manchu  dynasty  is  still  in  authority, 
the  emperor  again  occupies  his  palace  in  the  Forbid- 
den City,  and  the  dowager  empress  still  holds  the 
reins  of  government.  The  return  of  the  Chinese 
court  to  Peking  was  the  most  remarkable  episode, 
in  many  respects,  in  the  annals  of  the  Manchu  dy- 
nasty. Thirteen  million  taels,  about  $9,100,000  in 
gold,  were  spent  in  preparing  the  way  and  paying 
the  expenses  of  the  journey  from  Hsi-An-fu.  A 
special  train  of  twenty-two  cars,  decorated  with 
imperial  yellow,  carried  the  court  from  Paoting-fu  to 
the  capital  city,  a  distance  of  but  about  seventy 


Chinese  Empress  Dowager.  155 

miles,  while  the  long  journey  from  Hsi-An-fu  was 
made  in  sedan-chairs  and  other  antiquated  Chinese 
vehicles.  The  entrance  into  the  city  was  more  like 
that  of  a  returning  conqueror  than  a  fugitive  ruler. 
The  following  description  of  the  court's  return  to 
Peking  was  written  by  Dr.  H.  H.  Lowry: 

"The  imperial  party  was  carried  on  special  trains 
on  the  railway  to  within  two  miles  of  the  city  wall. 
There  an  improvised  station  had  been  erected  on 
the  spot  where  the  former  buildings  had  been  de- 
stroyed by  the  Boxers.  Over  the  platform  extended 
an  awning  of  yellow  silk.  On  one  side  of  the  plat- 
form were  the  tents  for  the  accommodation  of  the 
emperor  and  the  royal  family ;  and  on  the  other  side 
were  the  tents  for  the  provincial  and  metropolitan 
officials.  The  road  thence  to  the  palace  was  leveled 
and  covered  with  fresh  yellow  earth. 

"Inside  the  city  the  foreign-drilled  troops  of 
Yuan  Shih-k'ai  lined  each  side  of  the  street.  The 
soldiers  were  dressed  in  heavy  marching  order,  and 
made  a  fine  appearance. 

"The  Ch'ien-men  great  street  was  crowded  with 
thousands  of  Chinese;  but,  unfortunately  for  them, 
just  before  the  time  appointed  for  the  emperor  to 
pass  they  were  all  unceremoniously  driven  from 
from  the  street,  and  orders  were  given  that  all  shop- 


156        Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

doors  should  be  closed.  It  was  also  expected  that 
all  windows  would  be  curtained  to  prevent  the  peo- 
ple within  being  seen,  but  the  execution  of  this  order 
was  easily  evaded.  A  thin  gauze  covering  was 
placed  over  the  windows,  through  which  the  spec- 
tators could  be  as  distinctly  seen  as  before. 

"After  the  imperial  baggage  had  passed,  fol- 
lowed by  the  military  escort  of  infantry  and  cavalry, 
with  General  Ma  at  their  head,  the  first  chair  to  ap- 
pear was  that  of  Prince  Ching,  preceded  and  fol- 
lowed by  a  large  number  of  attendants  on  horseback. 
Shortly  afterward  the  cry  was  passed  along  the 
street  by  the  policemen  that  the  emperor  was  ap- 
proaching. The  soldiers  immediately  kneeled  and 
presented  arms.  It  proved  to  be  a  false  alarm,  and 
after  three  of  the  emperor's  horses,  with  yellow 
saddles  and  blankets  on,  had  passed,  the  soldiers 
and  police  resumed  their  upright  position. 

"As  the  emperor  approached,  there  was  perfect 
quiet  on  the  street.  Soldiers  and  police  were  again 
on  their  knees.  He  was  borne  by  eight  bearers. 
The  chair  was  surrounded  by  an  escort  of  a  hundred 
or  so  of  officials. 

"After  a  suitable  interval  came  the  empress  dow- 
ager, surrounded  by  a  much  larger  and  more  im- 
posing cavalcade  than  accompanied  the  emperor. 


Chinese  Empress  Dowager.  157 

On  her  left  rode  Yuan  Shih-k'ai,  the  viceroy  of  this 
province,  and  on  her  right  Ts'en  Ch'un-ch'uan,  the 
governor  of  Shansi.  It  was  reported  that  the  em- 
press dowager  entered  the  city  with  fear  and  trem- 
bling, not  knowing  what  foul  trap  the  foreigners 
had  laid  for  her  capture,  but  certainly  her  face  gave 
no  such  indication.  She  was  attracted  by  the  faces 
of  so  many  foreign  ladies  at  the  windows  of  the 
dispensary,  and  turned  toward  them  with  an  ex- 
pression of  the  greatest  interest. 

"Other  chairs  and  carts  contained  the  empress 
and  members  of  the  imperial  family,  and  soon  as 
they  passed  the  crowds  of  officials  and  people  filled 
the  street  from  side  to  side.  Often  there  were  six 
carts  abreast,  and  locomotion  was  almost  impossible. 

Inside  the  circular  inclosure  of  the  Ch'ien  gate 
a  halt  was  made,  and  the  emperor  entered  the  shrine 
of  the  God  of  War  to  worship.  The  empress  dow- 
ager worshiped  in  both  the  temples — that  of  the 
Goddess  of  Mercy  as  well  as  the  God  of  War.  She 
was  attracted  by  the  crowds  of  foreigners  on  the  city 
wall  watching  the  procession,  and  she  stopped  and 
bowed  to  them." 

In  all  this  display  more  honor  was  shown  to  the 
dowager  empress  than  to  Emperor  Kuang-Hsu 
himself.  Before  the  return  it  was  said  that  a  prop- 


158        Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

osition  was  being  discussed  to  allow  the  empress 
dowager  to  come  back  to  Peking,  providing  she 
would  take  no  part  in  the  government,  and  would 
agree  not  to  interfere  with  the  authority  of  the  em- 
peror. She  would  be  permitted  to  live  in  the  sum- 
mer palace,  distant  from  the  emperor,  and  be  given 
an  assured  allowance  for  her  support  the  remainder 
of  her  life.  But  when  her  excellency  concluded  to 
return  she  asked  no  one's  permission.  She  now 
exercises  as  much  authority  as  she  ever  did.  Some 
say  she  has  a  stronger  grasp  upon  power  than  ever 
before.  She  asserted  her  supremacy  some  time  ago 
by  granting  an  audience  in  the  sacred  hall  in  the 
Forbidden  City  to  the  ministers  of  foreign  coun- 
tries. At  this  reception  the  dowager  empress  occu- 
pied the  throne,  while  the  emperor  sat  behind  a  small 
table  on  her  right.  Chinese  officers  declare  that  the 
empress  dowager  disapproved  of  "Boxerism;"  that 
her  wishes  were  overruled  by  the  Boxer  leaders, 
and  that  her  edicts  during  the  rebellion  were  garbled. 
All  this  is  hard  to  believe,  yet  she  showed  commend- 
able zeal  in  suppressing  the  West  China  Boxer 
troubles  that  raged  during  the  summer  of  1902.  A 
few  weeks  after  the  return  of  the  Imperial  Court, 
the  dowager  empress  invited  the  ladies  of  the  for- 
eign legations  to  visit  her  in  her  palace.  This  in- 


RECEPTION  OF  THE  FOREIGN  MINISTERS  BY  THE 
IMPERIAL  COURT. 


Chinese  Empress  Dowager.  159 

vitation  was  accepted,  and  the  reception  proved  to 
be  an  event  of  great  importance,  not  simply  because 
it  was  unprecedented  in  the  annals  of  Chinese  his- 
tory, but  because  it  was  a  splendid  piece  of  diplo- 
macy. It  placed  the  dowager  empress  in  a  more 
favorable  light  in  the  estimation  of  the  Western 
world,  and  gave  her  an  excuse  for  breaking  down 
the  wall  of  seclusion  that  kept  the  Manchu  and  Chi- 
nese ladies  of  princely  birth  from  associating  with 
foreign  ladies. 

In  the  wake  of  this  reception  came  another  given 
by  Mrs.  Conger,  wife  of  the  American  minister. 
Invitations  were  sent  to  the  Chinese  women  of  noble 
rank.  This  move,  made  by  Mrs.  Conger,  was 
ridiculed  by  many  of  the  female  members  of  the 
other  foreign  ministers'  families.  They  did  not  be- 
lieve the  invitations  would  be  accepted. 

"The  question  was:  Would  or  would  not  the 
Chinese  ladies  of  noble  rank  come  out  of  their 
seclusion  and  accept  an  invitation  to  dine  with  for- 
eigners ?  In  all  the  historic  millenniums  of  heaven's 
empire,  no  such  precedent  could  be  found ;  but  Mrs. 
Conger  sent  her  invitation,  though  many  of  the  wise 
ones  laughed.  But  their  laughter  was  suddenly 
stopped;  for  on  March  I4th  a  procession  of  princesses, 
headed  by  the  yellow  palanquin  of  the  princess  im- 


160        Women  of  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

perial,  Yung  Shou,  adopted  daughter  of  the  dow- 
ager empress,  entered  the  American  legation  by  ap- 
pointment, followed  by  a  host  of  attending  eunuchs. 
Nine  princesses  of  the  blood,  or  wives  of  princes, 
a  duchess,  and  a  lady  interpreter,  formed  the  party. 
An  elaborate  tiffin  was  served  by  Mrs.  Conger,  as- 
sisted by  five  American  ladies  connected  with  the 
staff  of  the  legation  and  four  young  women  mission- 
aries, who  acted  as  interpreters.  These  Manchu 
ladies  had  never  before  been  inside  a  foreign  house, 
and  one  of  them,  it  is  said,  had  never  before  seen 
a  white  woman.  After  Mrs.  Conger  had  proposed 
the  health  of  the  empress,  and  it  had  been  drunk 
from  the  high-lifted  teacups,  the  princess  royal  de- 
livered a  personal  message  from  the  dowager,  who 
hoped  that  her  happy  relations  with  the  American 
ladies  and  with  the  country  they  represent  would 
never  be  severed."  (From  August  Friend,  1902.) 

We  should  not  judge  this  remarkable  woman  by 
Western  or  Christian  standards  of  morals  or -con- 
duct. Her  life  and  actions  have  been  shaped  by 
Confucian  standards  so  far  as  morals  are  concerned, 
but  as  a  woman  she  has  broken  through  the  barriers 
placed  about  womankind  by  the  great  sage,  and  has 
boldly  pushed  herself  to  the  front  until  she  is  without 
a  peer  among  the  women  of  Chinese  history. 


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